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.

Helicopters on project of concern list--Frigate upgrade shows progress

The expensive and poorly managed MRH-90 helicopter project has made its way on to the project of concern list.

Defence Minister Stephen Smith said on Monday the project had experienced delays of some two years with a risk of further delays and recently one aircraft suffered a major engine failure.

"The MRH project has encountered a number of significant technical issues, which have now triggered early indicators and warnings thresholds for schedule and contractor performance," he said in a statement.

Defence Materiel Organisation acting chief executive Warren King had recommended the project be listed as a project of concern and the government had agreed.

"Our policy objective here is a successful project and that is why we have reformed and improved and enhanced the project of concern arrangement with a very strong focus on remediation," he said.

The project of concern list now covers nine projects, headed by sustainment of the navy's Collins submarines.

Some good news: the Frigate upgrade program is off the project of concern list and is showing progress. Frigate class warships are highly useful for Australia's naval security needs.

Diagnostic review of MRH-90 continues

Why is it so difficult for Defence to procure helicopters?

This from ADM about the NRH-90 of which we will learn more by the end of October.

"A second diagnostic review of the MRH-90 Helicopter has been ordered to examine the effectiveness of the action taken and whether further action is necessary."

Not a glowing statement I see.

The review is part of this periodic meeting relating to the Project of Concern list.

"Minister for Defence Materiel Jason Clare today begins a two-day round of meetings with senior Defence officials and CEOs of companies which have projects on the Projects of Concern list."

What is the "capability" of Defence given all the hype and money spent?

Not much. And in recent history, no party has been especially useful for this portfolio of waste.

.

A leadership shake-up for the Defence Material Organisation?

The Canberra Times reports that there could be a leadership shake-up in the Defence Material Organisation (DMO) due to pressure exerted by Mr. Smith and friends who are upset with the wide variety of program disasters.

Here is a list of some of the offenses.

Recent DMO bungles have included the loss of amphibious fleet capability in February, the navy's inability to keep submarines at sea earlier this year and a $40million spend on landing craft that could not fit on the ships they had been specifically designed for.

APA was also quoted.

The head of test and evaluation for the think tank Airpower Australia and a consistent critic of the performance of DMO and its senior leadership team, Peter Goon, said that Dr Gumley and his department had to accept responsibility for some major failures. This included the recent debacle surrounding the flawed construction of keel blocks for the $8 billion air warfare destroyer project.

"The DMO signed off on the air warfare destroyer project without having an agreed certification basis or an agreed certification plan in place," he said.

"If the certification basis for the air warfare destroyer had been in place then the problems that have been so widely reported would have been much less likely."

Australian National Audit Office report on Defence procurement failings

The Australian National Audit Office has uncovered more of what we already know; our Defence procurement situation is a shambles. The report looks at the Navy issues, but of course this points at the failed experiment known as the Defence Material Organisation (DMO).

The report calls for better liason between the key players. Yes, some of us knew that already.

Where are the real project managers? Where is the real responsibility? I say it is time to save some money and break up the DMO and let uniformed service chiefs own the responsibility for procurement and sustainment. Supposedly our top flag ranks are not children that need failed bureaucrats to hold their hand (and purse).

The under-performing rent-seekers may have some fear.



H/T-reader: Gobsmacked

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.

Find out who is responsible for the Air Warfare Destroyer mess

(note: this post from 2011 is still key-EP)

Cameron Stewart from The Australian has another update on the Air Warfare Destroyer disaster.
In “Government and industry out of their depth on defence procurement” he tries to explain the battleground of the Australian Defence shipbuilding players. In my opinion he gets most of it right but doesn’t ask enough questions of why--in this situation and others—the Defence Material Organisation (DMO) is a failed experiment.
Let us start out by looking at one of the key players in the Air Warfare Destroyer project, Deputy CEO of the DMO Mr. King. A quote from the above mentioned article starts out with Mr. King waving the flag. The warship project is difficult but don’t we have what it takes to see it through?

Early on Monday evening in Canberra, as King was being grilled by senators about the troubled project in a Defence estimates hearing, the public servant suddenly pulled out a round piece of steel. He waved it at the startled senators and declared: "This is a piece of steel. It came from Western Australia and was milled at Port Kembla and was cut and shaped by Australian industry. There are about 20,000 of these to go in these [AWD] ships.
"We do have a challenge; it's a complex project [and] . . . our industry is not always ready to take on every project immediately . . . this is one of those cases. [But] do we as a nation stand by [in] these tough times, come up with appropriate decisions and build a better capability for the next generation or do we just fold and say the world has collapsed?"
In one emotional outburst, King -- deputy head of the government's defence acquisition agency, the Defence Materiel Organisation -- had summarised the dilemma facing the Gillard government over defence.

Nice try, but it was Mr. King himself that put us in this situation (DMO biography PDF *update* dead link...now in the 1984 "memory hole"). It was King that had the responsibility to see the project through first and second-pass approval. Matter of fact the first paragraph of his DMO bio mentions both the “Air Warfare Destroyer” and “responsibility”. The “success” part is in serious dispute. He even got a promotion from that “success”.
It seems that it was he that was out of his depth and not just the Defence community in total. If politicians want to ask the right questions about this debacle they have to pin the tail on the donkey without the blindfold.
If politicians want true accountability in the taxpayer funded arena of the Defence Circus, why do some of these people still have jobs? Mr. King is one. There are more. Where was his boss the CEO of the DMO, Mr. Gumley during all of this? Should not the leader of the DMO—as one of our highest tax-payer funded employees in the nation—take some responsibility? This is what was missing from Mr. Stewart’s article above.
With that, good work to Mr. Stewart for staying on this story. He points to those other important topics such as:
1.How much Australianisation can a project handle before it ends up as a dead kangaroo?
2.How much warship making skills do we have in the country considering that there are such long stints of inactivity between large projects?
3.Is the prime purpose of the Defence Industry a jobs program or to help defend the nation?
I will add two more. Where are the real project managers? And, if someone says, “Maybe we should not be doing this”, does anyone in authority listen?

By another name

A reader posted the link which I was aware of the term. Interesting though is that the Concorde was used as an example and as an alternate label for the term.

"The sunk cost fallacy is in game theory sometimes known as the "Concorde Fallacy", referring to the fact that the British and French governments continued to fund the joint development of Concorde even after it became apparent that there was no longer an economic case for the aircraft. The project was regarded privately by the British government as a "commercial disaster" which should never have been started, and was almost cancelled, but political and legal issues had ultimately made it impossible for either government to pull out."

More on Australia's air warfare destroyer woes

From what is now known, the Air Warfare Destroyer project is almost certainly on its way to the infamous project of concern list.

'More than 2400 faults' in data on $8bn destroyers.

The he-said, she-said is on-going. When reading through all of this just remember that it was the responsibility of the Defence bureaucracy to properly evaluate the risk, do their homework and set it up for the Defence Minister to put pen to paper or reject it as unworkable.

We should worry about our flag ranks

After reading this,"Officials: Military may deploy F-35 early", I am now certain some have been promoted way above their capability.

Just the opening paragraph should make one wonder.

"The military may deploy the F-35 joint strike fighter before the tri-service combat jet formally achieves initial operational capability, top uniformed officials told Congress earlier this week."

The F-16 became a largely successful program. The F-35 appears to be not only one of the most expensive but one of the most complex and faulty programs. When the F-16 was officially put into an active squadron at Hill Air Force Base, Utah, it was still significantly under-tested. Various documentation provided by the test community was incomplete and not always very clear. The pilots of the first operational squadron of F-16s became test pilots by any other name even though they were not qualified in that special skill. Pilots died in that first squadron simply because the USAF was in a rush to get the jet into service.

What do you think will happen if the F-35 is rushed into service before proper testing is done? The officials mentioned in the article of course claim it will be safely done. That was probably the same claim used by those that made the decision to rush the F-16 into service. CYA; in words anyway.

The F-35 program doesn't have a working helmet visual interface and does have a stack of other non-trivial problems.

What else is different in this F-16/F-35 comparison? Back then we had way more capable and qualified engineers working on USAF problems. Think about that as the DOD tries to make the F-35 flying piano work.

DOD has too many flag ranks. I suggest we start by getting rid of those guys. They are too dangerous to feed and house.

How different is the new destroyer from its Spanish roots? More than you may think

The Air Warfare Destroyer warship project that the then Defence Minister Nelson signed off on back in 2007 isn’t as simple as just throwing a few Australian specifications at a Spanish design. It is very high-risk.
Australia is not just trying to build an existing Spanish warship design. There are a lot of changes. More displacement; a lot more space needed for crew quarters; provisions; helicopter requirements; weapons systems accessories and more. How much more? It is very possible that it could be way more than our current situation of poor defence project management skills can handle. Consider the list at the bottom that shows the difference between the Spanish design and what Australia really wants for its Air Warfare Destroyer now languishing in project management hell.
All that, and as we now know, the project leaders can’t even produce the basic hull without serious trouble.
A proper Defence bureaucracy would have recognized the huge risk involved before a contract was even signed. Now, it is too late.
See also, today’s update from The Australian. The current government was warned about additional problems with the build back in February.
--------------

The Hobart Class - Differences from the F100 Class

Navantia’s F104 ship design is the basis for the AWD. The F104 baseline is being updated for AWD to include;

• Key F105 features,
  
• Australian Combat system modifications, and
  
• Selected platform upgrades that are unique to the Hobart Class.

These features are summarised as follows:

F105 Modifications

• More efficient and powerful diesel engines coupled with improved fuel tank arrangements will provide increased range,
  
• The inclusion of a bow thruster will improve manoeuvrability in harbours;
  
• Improvements to underway replenishment arrangements for manpower efficiencies;
  
• Changes to funnel tops to improve the ship’s air wake; and
  
• Bunk size increases to improve habitability.

AWD Combat System Modifications

• The Hobart Class will use the Aegis Weapon System Baseline 7.1and the AN/SPY-1D(V) Phased Array Radar.
  
• The Under Sea Warfare capability will be upgraded by:
  • Enhanced Anti Submarine Warfare capabilities and the addition of a torpedo defence system;
    
  • ASW decoys for torpedo defence;
    
  • Enhanced undersea communications;
    
  • Integration of the MU90 torpedo.

Other changes include:

• Modification of the MK45 gun and Gun Fire Control System, including provision for Extended Range Munitions (ERM);
  
• Addition of the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC);
  
• Modification of the IFF UPX-29 to the current tactical standard;
  
• Addition of an Horizon Search Radar (HSR) for improved anti-ship missile defence;
  
• Upgrades to the Surface-to-Surface Missile System to improve target selectivity in congested water, littoral and coastal operations;
  
• Upgrades to the Very Short Range Defence system to improve its integration and utility against asymmetric surface threats;
  
• Upgrades to the Electronic Warfare system, including the addition of electronic attack capabilities;
  
• Addition of X/Ka Satcom and INMARSAT Fleet Broadband and INMARSAT C capability;
  
• Improved Infrared Search and Track capabilities;
  
• Improved Electro-Optical Surveillance capability;
  
• Addition of Nulka Launchers for active missile decoys;

AWD-Unique Platform Modifications

The ship’s displacement will be increased to 7,000 tonnes for an improved service life margin.
Cold weather operation will be improved to allow for deployment into Australia’s southern waters.
The hangar will be modified to accommodate a range of helicopters.
Other modifications include:

• Increased total cold room capacity for improved endurance;
  
• Incorporation of a fixed gas detection system to warn of the presence of harmful gases in compartments where personnel exposure risks exist;
  
• Modification of the 220V/50Hz network to 240V/50 Hz, incorporation of Residual Current Devices (RCD) and the Australian pin configuration for general purpose outlets, and
  
• Modification of existing stowage, and increases in the overall number of stowage facilities, for thermal protective suit and life raft containers.

(Source: Air Warfare Destroyer Alliance)

Project of Concern cover-up with the Air Warfare Destroyer project?

The troubles with building new warships here in Australia (mentioned yesterday) has some new he-said/she-said that has appeared in today’s The Australian.

The new article is called, “Overdue and over budget: $8bn destroyer plan in crisis”. I think it is a must-read. It is written in the style of high drama. We (as the public) have seen so many Defence project goof-ups before it has to really impress to get the attention; or so it seems.

I don’t know the author of the story in The Australian but it is by Cameron Stuart and it has the word “Exclusive” by his name. The story also states that Defence only made this recent news about warship building public because his paper had the scoop.

Mr. Gumley, the head of the DMO is mentioned in Mr. Stuart’s article by name. With rank comes responsibility. Maybe someday we can actually expect this to happen.

“The Australian understands BAE has accused DMO chief Stephen Gumley of making exaggerated claims about BAE's culpability, and that relations between several key partners in the project have become badly strained.”

Surprisingly—or not—the root problem points back to planning in the Defence Material Organisation (DMO). I pointed to some claims of bad DMO relations with industry the other day.

One charge being pushed is that the Air Warfare Destroyer project was kept off the recent update to the project of concern list even though known delays should have put it there. If true, this is serious.

Still, I haven’t seen anyone put in jail for misleading our elected officials, which does happen often; year after year. Capability, sustainment, budget, expectations; mostly it is a kind of fraud by the Defence bureaucracy to keep their phony baloney jobs. In Australia you can spin stories about Defence to elected officials in hearings and get away with it.

I propose we rename the Defence Material Organisation. I suggest a good name for it would be, “Project of Concern”.

Home industry has to re-work its shipbuilding plan for new warships

Just imagine if this was the project to build the 12 subs that will replace the Collins class.

Home industry has maxed out the amount of skill available to do the work here in Australia for new warships. There will probably be delays.

Australia's new air warfare destroyers (AWDs) are set to run a year late with some construction work to be re-allocated from the stretched Melbourne BAE Systems shipyard to yards in Adelaide and Newcastle.

As well, some work worth millions of dollars will now be performed in Spain rather than Australia.

This will avoid what would have been an even worse delay of two years.

For those in the Defence Material Organisation (DMO), stay with me, these ships are much less complex than subs.

Also, ASPI has seen the light (sort-of) admitting that the 2009 Defence White Paper has serious problems. Along with that, they advise increases in Defence spending should not happen. I agree. Defence spending should only increase if there is a realistic strategic plan.

How "on-track" became "off-track" with the F-35

Just now reading the U.S. Senate hearing from the other day on the debacle that is the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program.

Senator McCain asks the DOD top procurement guy Ashton Carter what went wrong all these years; there was all that happy news reported to our politicians. The answer is very troubling. After all; we saw the term "on-track" so many times....

"And one of the things that Admiral Venlet and Dave Van Buren are doing now is restoring to the program the technical expertise resident at Pax River and Dayton and elsewhere and infusing this program office with it so that the Government side of the program is strong. I told you I did not have good management information a year ago because the program office was not strong. It did not have our very best people looking at this airplane, and all of our information came from the performers of the work and not from us. So that went on for a long time in the Joint Strike Fighter program, and the program office was not as strong technically as it should have been."

The whole transcript has a lot of worrying language. Enough to make it impossible to believe anything from the F-35 cheerleaders was true.

And matches well when we hear this deception from the then DOD F-35 program manager General Davis back in 2008 when responding to criticism from government audits.

"We do not agree with that estimate, there is no basis for that estimate, and we do not support it."

We can ill afford program managers that go native.

Where are the I.T. project managers?

It has been my observation that lousy I.T. project management is the curse of Australia. I saw a relatively simple migration project blow out from $1M to over $7M. Too big to fail and all that.

I have seen back-end web app projects deliver similar results. The project manager's main motivation was less about making the end product work and more about making themselves look good. Project managers that are not.

So reading about this Defence I.T. project going bad is no surprise.

"It has left a lot of the operators of this system screaming and throwing their hands up in the air. Unfortunately, quite often a lot of the transactions simply won't work, for unknown reasons."

Yeah. Seen that before. Define "unknown reasons".

Dilbert weighs in on U.S. defense project management

Dilbert gets in on the topic of U.S. defense project management.

H/T-weaponhead