Weekend deception

The weekend print edition of The Australian has their annual and grossly misleading feature section on the state of the state of Defence as it were.

As usual it is paid for by big industry rent-seekers from Boeing, LM, ASC and other usual suspects. The big advert dollars are the only reason this feature gets breathing space in the paper.

The cover page of this piece says, "Defence Special Report" and not: Defence marketing advertisement.

From that, one would expect actual reporting.

Every year this sham is always worth reading because it is written by alleged people knowledgeable for Defence which instead of being reporters on the topic are in effect, advert copy flacks for industry.

The average reader would not know this; which makes it a problem.

The "analysis" is really just that poor.

There is the usual rent-seeking inspired article about how Australia will someday have its' home grown white-elephant subs at the cost of tens of billions. It is supported by a big ASC advert. The SA government defence industry advert is on another page. And, this is probably the best "article" in the litter.

Not mentioned is the toxic relationship between the dysfunctional DMO, ASC and RAN.

There are advert-copy pieces on RAAF fast-jet air power.

They are crap.

They mention the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and how great the Growler will be.

There is little mention of the serious pitfalls having to do with the Just So Failed or the fact that the Grower is pudgy and short-ranged, has legacy jamming solutions, and against emerging Pacific Rim threats, it will suffer a similar fate to the F-35: it will get run down and killed.

The entrenched defence bureaucracy is waging a significant disinformation campaign against the tax payer. They are helped by those kinds of people who have employment which depends on our money flowing to dud defence planning schemes. The special Defence feature in the weekend edition of The Australian is part of that effort.


-Australian Defence Reading List

More nonsense on Defence issues from The Australian

The Australian has an interesting read from Mr. Sheridan who has an opinion on a variety of Defence matters.

Interesting because it is mostly bad.

He believes in the 2009 Defence White Paper even though it is a joke.

He believes in 100 "Joint Strike Fighters" even though the program is in serious trouble.

Be believes in the "Air Warfare Destroyers" and Canberra-class Amphibs even if the RAN management, along with the DMO management is a shambles.

Unless real adults are willing to fix show-stopping root-cause problems with Defence leadership, bureacracy and the DMO, anything else is a waste of time. This includes comments by some about the need of a higher GDP vs. Defence budget meme.

So, along with bad Defence policy, we have in these parts of the world, a majority of bad Defence reporting. The two make perfect bookends.

Defence spends on media consultants

Fortunately, Defence has their priorities straight. They have 190-some PR staff and decide they need media consultants. I wonder why? A great percentage of Australian news sources only copy/paste Defence press releases with little reporting skill.

The Defence Department is spending more than $1 million to acquire the expertise of a firm of former tabloid-TV journalists to help train its senior staff to speak to the media and write press releases.

Just before the axe fell on defence spending in the budget, Defence was able to push through a contract with the firm Media Manoeuvres to provide training to defence staff who are likely to be interviewed by the media or required to give written information to journalists.

The new three-year contract is more than double the value of its previous contract with Media Manoeuvres and brings the total value of contracts secured by the firm with Defence to $1.65m in the last three years alone.

Media Manoeuvres is one of many consulting firms that have profited from lucrative government contracts to provide media training. The firm Media Gurus has been awarded several defence contracts in recent years.

Two of Media Manoeuvres stable of training experts are former journalists with both A Current Affair and Today Tonight, while a third has worked for Hinch and Today Tonight. Other staff have experience in commercial radio.

Typo?

Strange:

Royal Australian Air Force chief Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd defended the purchase after grumbling by rival aircraft-maker Airbus Military that the tender process was unfair.

I thought he retired.

Hill Times doing the best they can

They have to eat you know...

Weekend fear

The Australian's Weekend Edition is a weekend omission.

In a Defence piece by Greg Sheridan called "Our forces reduced to impotence", the message is fear-mongering. The latest budget and the Labor government have destroyed Defence. And isn't it a shame that the Defence White Paper of 2009 isn't being followed? The fact that Defence leadership has made significant procurement errors over the years isn't mentioned.

The article spreads over 8 columns and goes on to another page. The online version is here.

Lots of words. No real substance.

First, the Defence White Paper of 2009. It was garbage when it came out. I painted it as such, and was, unfortunately correct. Sheridan defends one of its authors Mr. Babbage; who back in 2007, seemed to be all glowing about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It would be powerful because it had networking and gosh, that would make us superior that is for sure. Unfortunately for Babbage, flying the flag of the system-of-systems approach only works when your assumptions are sound. Otherwise it turns into the South-side product of a North-bound bovine. Babbage also ignored the fact that an enemy has a will of their own, funding (and the ability) to create combat networks and jam ours. The U.S., the most experienced user of net-centric-warfare, knows the limitations. This, Babbage didn't see fit to mention to Parliament or anyone else. This assumes he even had knowledge of such things.

Combat networking isn't owned by the "fifth-generation-fighter" dreamers.

Not mentioned by Sheridan (and Babbage) are the staggering F-35 development problems. Sheridan presses on trying to make the reader believe the F-35 is better than the Super Hornet, and that the Super is good for 10 years against the threat and the solution is that we need to get those Joint Strike Failures.

This is a Sheridan (or whoever told him this) fiction.

The Super Hornet dominates the F-35 in every operational need for a joint coalition commander. The F-35 can only sprinkle fairy dust in hoping that it will be more survivable or even useful. And, the F-35 is in no way, just a smaller F-22. If Sheridan's view is that the Super Hornet will not be able to take on emerging threats in 10 years, the F-35 will fare worse. The F-35 is too defective (by the very nature of its design) to handle emerging threats and is too expensive to own and operate for lesser threats handled just fine by today's technology.

Sheridan goes on to mention the 12 rent-seeking replacements for the Collins class submarines. Not mentioned is that Australia is unable to crew 6 boats let alone 12. One would think that from the beginning, one would want to see proof of life on the ability to crew 6 submarines before building 12.

While Labor might not be the brightest tool in the bag on Defence issues, at least their extreme red-ways of this current government have started to chop the Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy into a manner of where they will have to spend within their means. I say that, but the Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy just spent over 3-times the money for a light transport aircraft versus a competing product ($1B over); and was even silly enough to think it was a valid Caribou replacement when it was not. They also just threw away $214M on a submarine study for the rent-seekers when that same money would have made a nice down-payment on an off-the shelf sub. The Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy also wants to waste hundreds of millions on obsolete jamming gear for 12 Super Hornets. The Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy has a gross excess of star-ranked officers and senior-service executives. And yes, why do we need 7000 DMO employees for military procurement?

I don't believe the cry-me-a-river routine by those refusing to look in the mirror and neither should you.

The sad thing is that many will read The Australian article and believe it.

Some of the "defence" writers in this part of the world need help. Their imaginative writing (or is it fear of being cut off from Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy sources?) is only white-wash which fails to illuminate the weaknesses of today's senior Defence planners (and White Paper hacks) along with their choice of faulty and expensive weapons systems that don't contribute to national security.

More investigative journalism has to be done on why the Entrenched Defence Bureaucracy wastes so much money for so little value. Being an advocate for change by reporting accurately is valuable. Being an advocate for the faulty Entrenched Defence Bureacracy is a disservice to this nation.

RAAF boss practices deception; or just doesn't know

The top RAAF boss makes some statements that lack credibility.

He states that the Growler upgrade for 12 of our 24 Super Hornets is a good idea, when in fact, such an effort will be a waste of money.

He states this about the F-35:

Air Marshal Brown said the fifth-generation JSF would meet Australia's needs for many decades, providing control of the air across the entire spectrum of conflict.

No evidence. The fifth-generation meme is just valueless. Worse, Brown tries to imply that just because an F-22 will clear the table of all threats, that the same can be done with the F-35.

The F-35 is not just a smaller F-22.

The F-35--by defects in its design--will not be combat effective for Australia's (or anyone else's) needs.

In an effort to save money for the ADF, I can think of one star-ranked officer that isn't up for the job and needs to find a different line of work. A star-ranked officer spreading disinformation, or just being badly informed (pick one) doesn't add any value to the defence of the nation.


Additional reading (PDF files):

Review of the Defence Annual Report 2010-2011

--Submission 2--“CHECKING THE DATA & THE FACTS;. . . .THEN TESTING THE EVIDENCE” a.k.a. TRUTH DERIVED FROM DATA & FACTS VS A TOTAL INDIFFERENCE TO WHAT IS REAL

--Submission 3--THE EVOLVING THREAT ENVIRONMENT Reference Threat Capabilities versus the Joint Strike Fighter (Materialised Predictions from APA Founders’ Threat Assessments dating back to Circa 1998)

--Submission 5--F-35 JSF Air Combat Capability Information for Defence Sub-Committee Members

--Submission 6--From Mr. Erik Peacock, To the secretariat, Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Review of the Defence Annual Report 2010-2011

--Submission 7--Answers to the 07 February 2012 Defence Sub-Committee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Simulation assumptions, issues and visualisation, REPSIM Pty Ltd

--Submission 9--There is Nothing Normal nor Usual let alone Standard about the JSF . . .

--Submission 10--RE: APA Submission No 4 to the JSCFADT Hearings into the JSF - Thana Marketing, KPIs and the JSF Program

--Submission 11--ASSESSING THE EVIDENCE PROVIDED BY AVM KYM OSLEY, NEW AIR COMBAT CAPABILITY PROJECT MANAGER

--Submission 12--COMPLAINT REGARDING THE PRESENTATION BY AVM KYM OSLEY,DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE AND LOCKHEED MARTIN REGARDING REPSIM PTY LTD

--Submission 13--Are Unsupported Assertions Data or Facts, let alone Evidence, upon which to Rely?

--Submission 14--THE AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE: A CULTURE OF INCONGRUENCE BETWEEN POLICY AND PERFORMANCE

--Submission 15--ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON COMPLAINT REGARDING THE PRESENTATION BY LOCKHEED MARTIN REGARDING REPSIM PTY LTD

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?

Update on the great white north F-35 problem

Too funny. For the 3rd time as far as I know, a Canadian media source reports on the F-35 with an F-35 advert helping things along.

And if you missed the advert at the top of the page, well, there is one a little further down on the right.

UPDATE--Canadian news helps the F-35 program-again

Another Canadian news source is helping out the F-35 program. A Hill Times article from today includes a large, glossy interactive sales advert from the maker of the F-35.

iPolitics is also guilty of this behaviour in the past.

It doesn't help media credibility.

As expected, where the media advert sales department excels, the reporting on the government effort to mislead the public about the CF-18 fighter replacement under-performs.

For example, the United States Air Force (USAF), the largest alleged buyer of the F-35A (the model the Canadian DND wants) at 1763 jets has a much different price than what the DND claims.

USAF predicts their average cost of the jet with an engine to be $120M each. That is a far cry from the misleading claim by the Canadian government.

That USAF cost does not include research and development. It also assumes that the whole of the program will stay untouched. That is, that the "economy of scale" myth of the F-35 program will endure and there will be over 3000 F-35s made.

Large amounts of F-35 development problems (due to management incompetence) have kept the dream of an affordable and combat-effective aircraft from happening. Costs are soaring while engineering challenges are taking a huge toll.

The USAF number will probably go up. Why? History. In 2009, USAF thought they would get their jets for $90M each.

Where will that number be in another 3 years?

What the Canadian media misses (again) is that MacKay stated since 2010, that Canada would start buying their jets during a time of "peak-production" during the 2016 time-frame at around $70M each. That folks, is misleading.

Of interest, (reported by the media) the DND had planned to add 14 more F-35s which no-one else knew about (as a separate project) for 79 jets. This kind of deception won't fly with the public either.


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UPDATE- iPolitics today....

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Keeping the F-35 in any form is not a solution for Canada

iPolitics has a solution for the Canadian F-35 mess. Problem is that the author doesn't have a grasp of F-35 problems; both technical and war-fighting.

Interesting that the solution involves the F-35. I guess advertising dollars still have to flow. Somehow.

LSM

So there was this sled dog (musher) saves kid story that was copy pasted for convenience with zero reporting put in by the media.

Sound familiar?

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And what really happened.

The Lexington Institute and F-35/Syria propaganda

The Lexington Institute is at it again.

They are still trying to push the idea that the F-35 program has a future. They keep grabbing at straws.

They claim the F-35 is capable against modern threats, when in fact it is not survivable.

The Lexington Institute doesn't understand that even the alleged biggest buyer of the F-35 (USAF) has no way to afford the aircraft.

The Lexington Institute does not understand that serious engineering problems are what is holding the great dream of mass production behind. They would have us think that the problems are minor and fixable. Build away; even if it means $30 billion in mistake jets.

The Lexington Institute is now so desperate and willing to do anything to sell the F-35 to anyone who will listen that they are adding the Syria situation to their flimflam routine.

The problem with that idea is that Syria has an obsolete air defense system.

This means that a few squadrons of Block II Super Hornets could plink these systems away in short order.

So what if Syria suddenly grew advanced fighters and advanced long-range surface-to-air missile systems? These kinds of threats are not (and never were) part of the game plan for the F-35. The F-35 requirement assumed that the F-22 would clear away these kinds of problems. Simply because the F-22 has the ability to survive in such an environment.

The Lexington Institute is quick to blame Obama for cancelling the F-22 but nowhere in that discussion is a clueless Gates; a joke of USAF leadership; or help by Lockheed Martin alumni who did not want to see budget competition for their grand Forth Worth, F-35 cash cow.

Maybe the Lexington Institute should try doing something more suited to their limited talents. Perhaps selling insurance to the gullible or maybe used cars.

An air campaign against Syria may or may not be launched for various reasons. The F-35 will not be a deciding factor in that air campaign. Just as important: the F-35 will not be capable against advanced threats and for anything else, is too expensive to use versus the tools we already have.

What is surprising is that anyone would need the Lexington Institute to pontificate on air power theory. They are not capable of bringing any useful knowledge to the discussion.

Minister for Defence Materiel - Address to the Australian Defence Magazine Congress

A captive and friendly audience is what meets the DMO for the address to the Australian Defence Magazine (read-Defence cheerleaders) Congress.

The following quote from the full address below is stunning:

¨Take the Collins Class subs, it’s quite clear that there were problems, there were mistakes, and there are of course many challenges ahead, but no nation, no matter how advanced, expects to deliver complex projects without controversy. We simply should not forget that the Pentagon was once derided for thinking that computer systems actually had a place in the military hardware; that the Humvee, the M1 Abrams, the Black Hawk were all criticised in their time. And I can recall the Bushmaster here was heavily criticised in the early days and it may well have come to the point where it was closed down. But today would anyone argue that it has saved lives for Australians for many years?¨

Comparing the Collins disaster to the Humvee, the M1 and the Blackhawk. Good luck with that. Those platforms when fielded actually delivered value. The Collins has done no such thing. The Bushmaster? Great program. Great vehicle But here is the other part of the story. In the beginning, the entrenched Defence bureaucracy wrote such a poor performance contract, that when there were problems early on, Defence was near powerless to do much except sit, watch and hope it worked out. Pretty much their standard procedure with procurement management.

Then this:

¨Now, there’s a view in some quarters, and I read it in The Financial Review on a regular basis, that these are all decisions that simply come down to the bottom line in next year’s budget. Frankly, I don’t think that’s the message the Australian people pursue. I think the Australian people are tired of small mindedness. They are sick of hearing that other countries are better, are cheaper or are smarter. They want to believe that this is a country that can do great things for its troops and for the people they defend.´

No. The public is long tired of gross incompetence in places like the failed experiment known as the DMO along with other known associates promoted way beyond their skill level.

This kind of gathering is music for rent-seekers who lobby for more Defence waste. And what real value does Defence provide at $27B per year? Not much. The organisation needs a hair cut of about $10B for what little it provides.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for the opportunity to be with you today, it’s a great pleasure.

Some two months into the job I thought this would be an opportunity to share with you a few of my early reflections. I’m the 29th Minister to hold the Defence Procurement Portfolio since 1939. What I have discovered in these first two months is just how much attention the Defence community pays to this issue of legacy, and it is the case in my circumstance where I’ve taken on what might we describe as the legacy of 28 predecessors. And some, of course, have had more profound legacies than others. But I’m not really here today to talk to you about others’ legacies; I’m here today to talk about our legacy.

I believe that we have to face up to our responsibilities, to our legacy to future generations. This financial year the DMO will spend more than $10B and every day Australian Defence personnel stake their lives on the quality of the equipment that we provide. So our decisions shape the lives of real people but, however, it’s not just the lives of Defence personnel that we’re talking about and it’s not just the lives of the 27,000 people that work in the local Defence industries. More broadly, our decisions help determine what skills, what technologies, what industrial capabilities this country will take well into the next century.

So, all of this begs the question, “What are we trying to achieve?” Defence procurement is not simply about buying modern weapons; it’s very much part of developing a modern country. So I face this job on the basis of asking myself, “What sort of country will we be defending in years to come?”, “What are we as a people capable of achieving?”

Now, there’s a view in some quarters, and I read it in The Financial Review on a regular basis, that these are all decisions that simply come down to the bottom line in next year’s budget. Frankly, I don’t think that’s the message the Australian people pursue. I think the Australian people are tired of small mindedness. They are sick of hearing that other countries are better, are cheaper or are smarter. They want to believe that this is a country that can do great things for its troops and for the people they defend.

So I say we can. I say we should be ambitious. We want the best equipment we can afford and we want to be the best at supplying it. Now, those of you who know me well from another role know that I’m very much in favour of buying Australian. I wear this badge consciously. But it’s not a question of buying Australian at any price or on any terms, and this is a point I cannot stress enough. I’m not in the business of defending second best and, from all of my dealings with industry; I don’t believe that you are either. And that’s why we together must strive for excellence.

Now, we have no trouble arguing the case that we build world-class schools, that we will build world-class universities, we’re building the MBM, we’re modernising our tax system and we are shifting to clean technology. We have no trouble arguing that because we are a creative and a clever people. And so I say why shouldn’t we support our troops by investing in ourselves?

Take the Collins Class subs, it’s quite clear that there were problems, there were mistakes, and there are of course many challenges ahead, but no nation, no matter how advanced, expects to deliver complex projects without controversy. We simply should not forget that the Pentagon was once derided for thinking that computer systems actually had a place in the military hardware; that the Humvee, the M1 Abrams, the Black Hawk were all criticised in their time. And I can recall the Bushmaster here was heavily criticised in the early days and it may well have come to the point where it was closed down. But today would anyone argue that it has saved lives for Australians for many years?

So we shouldn’t judge our achievements on the basis of popular prejudice. Collins subs are, as I’m often told, for complexity on a par with the space shuttle. We forget how ambitious the goal was at the time, largely because we have lost sight of how far we’ve actually moved along the line to be able to produce equipment of this scale and this complexity.

As late as the 1980’s we were reliant on the Abram Class submarines built in the United Kingdom, yet we developed the capabilities at home to upgrade them and we developed the skills to use them. And that laid the foundations for the Collins build program.

Now, whatever your views on the program, it has delivered one of the largest conventional submarines in the world, and for Australia I believe that has developed a unique capability for our needs. So we should not even contemplate, that when it comes to the question of the Future Subs, that it will be a long journey. And that we should be ambitious for what this country can produce.

And I don’t want for a moment to forget how tough the conditions have been or they’re likely to remain. It’s important to remember a few basic facts. We are a small nation with the world’s third largest maritime territory to secure. We are a great trading nation. Our prosperity rests upon our capacity to keep our shipping lanes open. Ninety-nine percent of all our trade is by sea, and we simply cannot rely upon someone else to do all the jobs that we can’t do ourselves. We cannot leave our security to the whim of the market. We must be willing to achieve great things. And if we have the ambition this government is about building the conditions to realise that ambition.

Now, as I read it, this is very much what DMO’s mission’s all about. They are here to support people who support our troops and I want to assure you they want to work with industry to get the right equipment and the right capabilities together. And that’s, for instance, if we take the example that’s been developed with a priority industry capability health checks. This is a government and industry working together to monitor and build our strength strategically. And today I’m releasing two further health checks covering the Signature Management and the Mission Critical Software Systems and they’ll be available on the DMO website.

Our second example is our reforms to the ship maintenance arrangements, and over the service life of our fleets the total investment in the sustainment can be double or triple the original purchase price of any particular unit. And a lot of that work has to be done in Australia. And it’s a long term need requiring long term investments in capabilities. For that reason, the old sustainable model, I think the sustainment model cannot meet that need and so it’s been changed. The burden of industry suppliers to our larger ships is to bid in the past on the basis of each and every maintenance activity will be a thing of the past. Longer term contracts are the way of the future, to provide the incentives for the investment’s company need in their own capabilities.

And we’ll bring down the administrative costs and we’ll help raise the incentive for our suppliers, as I say, to invest in their own future.

The new arrangements are being rolled out for the ANZAC frigates first, with the FFG fleet to follow, and the next five year contract for the ANZAC fleet is expected to deliver cost savings in that way of between 10% and 15% over the current arrangement.

The government hopes to be able to make an announcement on this contract in the very near future. This is also the contract model for, that Defence may use for the landing helicopter docking ships and the air warfare destroyers.

It’s a new approach, an approach that’s good for industry, it’s good for our navy and it’s good for the Australian taxpayers.

Now, that’s the sort of legacy I think we can all be proud of to build if we simply have the courage to pay our part. Thank you very much.

Australian Defence pushes more misinformation on the F-35 to the press

Defence is misleading the press.

Again.

The F-35 cheerleaders are afraid that Smith will sign up for another order of Super Hornets. They think a preemptive strike in the media--which proclaims that the F-35 debacle is manageable--can't hurt.

Today's Canberra Times has a read that has the usual Defence talking points which are wrong. They are yet to figure out the following:

1. The F-35 is not a fifth-generation fighter (except in the dreams of marketing people)
2. The 2009 Defence White Paper is a joke.
3. The F-35 will not be able to take on modern anti-access threats.
4. The F-35 program has significant problems.
5. Some major U.S. political leaders are not happy about those problems.

Canada's National Post F-35 cartoon

Just trying to help out the mentally challenged with the F-35. My corrected graphic below. There is no excuse for this kind of sloppiness with a news organization. The HARM was long gone from F-35 hopes and dreams. The same contract that added the SDB in 2006 removed drop tanks because it was too risky with stores clearance. And the redesigned tanks don't even look like that.

You can forget any air-to-air weapons for now (or straffing) because not only are there problems with helmet display quality, because of significant buffet in the heart of the combat envelop you can't use the helmet to cue weapons including the gun. Especially the gun.

So far I have been kind. Even overly optimistic given the state of the poor engineering management with this program. There are some more significant errors with the Post's graphic but that will do for now.

LM Official--RAAF F-35s on schedule

Good news is great. I love good news.

Don't you?

According to the Canberra Times, Lockheed Martin official Tom Burbage states that Australia should get its F-35s on time.

Apparently, there were a few things missing from the press event: no real challenging questions from the press.

Here is what was not asked at the press event. I offer these questions which could have been asked.

1. Mr. Burbage, in 2003, low-rate initial production (LRIP) batch number 5 was on the order of 120 aircraft. In 2009 LRIP 5 was briefed as 61 aircraft. Today, LRIP 5 is 30 aircraft. Without large numbers of F-35s, there is no low price. Without a stable design, there is no production learning curve. With the premise of the F-35 business plan now dead, how can you stand there and tell the Australian public that the F-35 is affordable?

2. Mr. Burbage, the top United States Department of Defense (DOD) F-35 program manager Admiral Venlet (an experienced test pilot) has stated that the build and test plan—which for years was the overly-optimistic basis of the aircraft’s alleged affordability-- was a 'miscalculation.' He also states that production should be slowed down. Australia has to replace its aging Hornet fleet by 2018-2020. If there is no way to make that schedule, does this not disqualify the F-35 as a Hornet replacement?

3. Mr. Burbage, the great assumption in F-35 development and test was that modelling and simulation would help with the ability to speed up production at a rapid rate. The current troubled history of the program indicates that this assumption was greatly flawed. Shouldn’t Australians wait until there is a complete go-to-war and properly tested F-35 before evaluating it as having potential value for our defence needs?

There is this really cool thing in journalism. Answers to questions like the above can generate follow-up questions. Which then ends up pulling out the rug from under people like Mr. Burbage.

Who are people like Mr. Burbage? Those that have trouble telling the truth.

The Australian public is being misled about the F-35. Trouble is, no one in the mainstream press seems willing or able to carry the ball.

Australia's journalism problem

Sad when Australian news reporters bury, ignore or just get a big story wrong.

Some non-news organisations are trying though.

Until then, what we have as skill-sets in the press don't even qualify for Journalism 101.

Andy Rooney passes on

Growing up-60 minutes was on every Sunday night. It ended every show with a little commentary by Andy Rooney.

Dead legacy government agencies and paying for it...

The Captains Journal brings up the point about the bloated U.S. Postal Service and a lack of quality reporting by the New York Times.

CJ points out that the NY Times is trying to pass off an opinion piece as reporting; again.

I agree with almost every bit of the CJ post except one little thing. The CJ post mentions all of the government waste and lack of affordability of dead legacy government agencies. True. Yet, if for some reason the postal service was worth saving, we could afford it.

Simply by not spending $2~3 billion per week on dumb, no-win wars.