Operation:BOVINE, an F-35 PR tour at Fort Worth

Here is a good look at a F-35 PR tour in Fort Worth. Make it a must-read.

The idea is not just to make everyone listen, but to prime for repetition – to turn every observer into an evangelical for the Church Of F-35, merely a conduit through which the product sells itself.

It’s not an unfamiliar technique. You’d probably face the same rhetorical mechanisms at any run-of-the-mill sales seminar for anything from a car to a timeshare, complete with the same kind of generalities, assumptions, repetitions, and immense timeframes that skew your ability to contextualize exactly what kind of money is at stake in the long run. It’s just rare that you have to face it for two straight days. Really, the whole experience was no different than watching the Shopping Channel selling the same product for 48 hours, receiving so much information at every possible moment that your senses are so overwhelmed, you’re finally incapable of deciding what bits are true, what might be useful to you right now, what might be useful in the future, and how much is probably just complete and utter bullshit.

It is also good that defence industry "journalists" help out too:

Flynn claimed the lag and jitter has been fixed. “The helmet works exactly like we wanted,” he said the first day. When another reporter and I asked Velazquez follow-up questions about the reports of flickering, one defence industry journalist from an aviation magazine actually stepped in to help him out, reminding us that the thing to remember was that the helmet was still in development. Twice. Some, it seemed, are more easily converted than others.

The reporter observes:

At more than one point, there was the suggestion that if anyone doubted the importance of stealth, one had to only look at what other global powers like China are developing. That is, perhaps one day, stealth might have to fight stealth. I found it strange, then, that when I asked a Lockheed simulator tech whether that computer program had ever been geared to train users how to fight other F-35s, the answer was no. It was possible, he said, but the concept of the Joint Strike Fighter was that only the U.S. and its allies would be using the planes. Quite the simulator.

The article is good with a few flaws: There is no $85M F-35.

Also; the reporter states some dumb things too.

There was a lot of talk at various points about the last stealth jet fighter, the F-22 Raptor, but none about how it still hasn’t seen a single combat mission. Ever.

In any event, it will be more interesting if journalists put more focus on this kind of a story.

The reporter has just seen their last trip to LM and will be put on "the list".

Touch and go

Touch and go...

ADF cost per flying hour estimates from the 2013 budget

The chart below shows ADF cost per flying hour estimates from the recent 2013 budget. These dollars are not for aircraft upgrades and refurbishment. Those jobs are handled under different fund-sites. For example, the C-130J software upgrade or classic Hornet refurb fixes.

Not all ADF aircraft are included.

Again these are estimates. The real figure will be known at the next budget. Some aircraft may do better, some worse.

This chart took a few extra minutes to prepare compared to a previous year cost per flying hour estimate that was already pre-prepared by Defence.

Sustainment dollars for each aircraft type are shown in the DMO portion of the budget. Authorized flying hours are shown in the service budget.

The chart is interesting for any number of reasons. I suspect the C-17 looks so good because the Boeing sustainment model happens to be tight. The Wedgetail cost per flying hour is improving. Helicopters? Basket cases and overly expensive.

ADF Cost Per Flying Hour Estimate for 2013-14

source: DMO/Defence 2013 Budget

Asked to resign

LOL.




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USAF says it could lose F-35s due to lack of cash:

This story just disappeared in less than an hour from Breaking Defense (Update-story back up):

F-35: Sequester May Cost Air Force 5 More F-35As; Air Guard, Modernization At Risk

ARLINGTON:  “I don’t have the exact number yet,” Air Force Maj. Gen. Edward Bolton said Tuesday, but to pay the bill for sequestration, the service might have to cut its fiscal 2013 procurements by “two, three, four, maybe even five F-35s.” “That money’s just gone,” sighed Bolton, the service’s outgoing Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget,…Keep reading →
Tags: 2013 budget, air force, Air Force Association, Air National Guard, budget, f-35 joint strike fighter, F-35A, Gen. Edward Bolton, sequestration

Some history:

“It’s about $37 million for the CTOL aircraft, which is the air force variant.”
- Colonel Dwyer Dennis, U.S. JSF Program Office brief to Australian journalists, 2002-

A look at Collins sustainment from the new budget

The recent Defence 2013-14 budget projection for DMO submarine sustainment is only $574M.

I find that very impressive. I gather that 1 of the 6 Collins subs is pretty much in a semi-scrapped position. That leaves 5 others that are in various phases of periodic refurbishment or on-line for operations.

I am curious how many subs will be operational over this next budget period?

Defence--bloated senior staff numbers

Amazing that so many could feed at the trough. A quick summary of ADF personnel numbers:

Flag ranks

Navy 57
Army 77
Air Force 56
Total 190

SES 168

Total ADF Personnel

Navy 16,374
Army 45,047
Air Force 17,264

Civilian 21,217

The problem is that Defence could be run properly with a small handful of flag-ranks. It is difficult to believe that Defence is careful with our money when they have 190 over-fed flags and 168 SES doing exactly what?

Of anywhere in the federal budget, this one of the top examples of unneeded welfare payouts for so little return on the dollar.

Whenever Defence states it isn't getting enough money, suggest leadership by example. The flag ranks and SES need a serious cull.

How serious? Look at the Army.

It is about the strength of a Corps composing 3 divisions (in numbers not the true organisational table of the Australian Army).

For those numbers you need:

A Corps commander and their second in command: a 3 star and a 2 star.
Each "Division" of 15,000 or so troops needs a Division commander and a second in command: A 2 star and a 1 star.
Brigades wound need a commander and a second in command: A 1 star and a colonel.

So just on the numbers, the Army has no justification for 77 flag ranks.

I suspect a good-ol' boy network here: you scratch my back, I'll get you a jag.

Sickening. Disgraceful. 

Video: UCAS-N X-47B carrier launch

Big fat Defence budget...starting with big fat DMO

Defence budget items are here.

I will be commenting on them over the next few days.

DMO:

LOL!!!!!

24 star-ranked officers and 35 senior executives. That is enough rank heat to run all of Defence!!!




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I would significantly trim the DMO and have it led by a flag officer that reports to the Chief of Defence. There wouldn't be any other flag ranks in the DMO.


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This largess has to be trimmed down to where it approaches something that gives the appearance it supports the defence of the country.

WWII history, near and far

It seems the well-worn cliché of the Germans keeping good records holds again.

I have always liked WWII history a lot; the Russo-German war being a favorite subject.

Like other countries that were invaded by Germany, the Soviet suffering was appalling; where this part of the war had its’ own special kind of brutality.

The stories of all ranks in that war are of endless interest for me. I liked reading General v. Manstein’s book, “Lost Victories”. Recently on a trip to Sydney I got a must-read for anyone that likes the topic, “Manstein, Hitler’s Greatest General” by Mungo Melvin. It is a full biography on Manstein. It is very good. And, shocking for v. Manstein’s omissions of any number of bad things you can think of from that period.

A few months ago I was reading about the 1941-era of the war and just happened across a variety of battles that happened around Staraya, Russia. I even took the time to look at Google Earth of the area. There is a small war museum there that looks like it would be worth a visit.

My wife’s grandfather was an ethnic German in Latvia. Their family lived well in the pre-war years. The photo-album has some wonderful photos from those days. The grandfather (Konrad) and his wife were a stunning couple. After the partition of Poland (which included the Soviets getting the Baltic states), their family was moved to Danzig. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, their family moved back to Latvia.

Konrad ended up with some kind of administration job in government. In 1943 he was called up for military service as a signal tech with a German Army interpreter unit.

Recently someone in the family wrote off to Germany where there is a government service that tracks these things.

In incredible detail.

Konrad made it to corporal. After training he was assigned as a signal tech with the 2nd Company, 4th Grenadier Regiment, 32nd Infantry Division. The Division’s unit logo is a Lion. If any of you follow that sort of thing like the table of organization of Heer units, you instantly recognize that is one of the Infantry Companies at the top of the organizational food chain.

A quick summary of Konrad’s Army travels while he was with the Division are as follows:
June – Nov. 1943 – Staraya
Dec, 1943 – March 1944 – Newel
Apr – July –1944 –Ostrow

More specifically for Konrad, hospital admissions records show this:

08.04.1944 – South of Gorusha, 12km south of Pleskau, wounded, artillery shell shrapnel, injury to left thigh. Decision: remain with unit.

14.06.1944 – Nemojewo East of Ostrow, wounded, artillery shell shrapnel, injury to left arm. Decision: remain with unit.

Sometime after this, Konrad sent a photo back to his wife. The photo was one that he kept on him of her looking very pretty in the garden. The words on the back stated he wishes he was with her.

This is the remainder of the hospital records:

25.07.1944 – Berjotzki West of Ostrow, wounded, artillery shell shrapnel, injury to neck. Decision: transferred to field hospital.

Deceased:

27.07.1944, 17:55 – Field hospital Walk, Lettland; died as a result of injury. Shrapnel to neck. Spinal cord injury.

Location of grave:
District Cemetery, Walk. We have no information about the present condition of the grave.

The lastest LM F-35 marketing spin for South Korea

Below is a recent ( 9 May 2013 ) LM F-35 marketing brief to S. Korea.

In it you will find numerous statements to the potential customer that are misleading and over-simplified. Of interest:

Slide-3: Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) batches past 9 are labled TBD.

DT Flight Test over by 2016? Interesting becuase TR-2 hardware jets (starting with LRIP-6) are needed to run Block 3 software. By 2016, if the schedule holds, these aircraft will still be a big question mark in capability before an operational test squadron touches them.

The slide does say "F-35 Master Schedule" at the top so it is worth a comparison down the road.

Slide-4: It says "Mission Effectiveness with an "*" for, "USG & Partner Validated and Verified Results". This is an incredible claim with so many things not proven on the aircraft.

I like the 10-1 thing on the electronic warfare category. For an export-tech-friendly aircraft, it will be interesting to see what capability the F-35 does not have.

Given what S.Korea faces in the coming years, if they think real stealth is important, best to have something with F-22 capability.

Like previous briefs, all through the briefing you will see the F-35 as a "fifth-generation fighter", meme. The aircraft is not a little F-22.

Slide-5: Ponder. And then look back at slide 4. Interesting as the outgoing LM F-35 front-man admitted that weight assumptions in the design were wrong. Not an easy fix.

Slide-6: There; with no substance of what it means.

Slide-7: Not mentioned is the watering down of Block definitions and that anything before a TR-2 hardware jet isn't of much use. That is being generous to the program.

Slide-8 & 9: Two whole slides dedicated to noise issues. This must have been a big issue in the S. Koran press.

Here is something from a few years ago for comparison.


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Looks like the same source. Of interest, those chevrons on the back of the F-35 motor may help some.

Slide-10: This is a monument which shows the fact that we are kicking out a lot of mistake jets with little credible knowledge about the F-35's capability.

Slide-11: Using a DOD hack to hell sell aircraft. We are parking ships and aircraft and cutting numerous other operational communities but somehow this is what counts.

Slide-12: This is not unlike Slide-4 in its' message.

The rest of the slides are a nonsense claiming that the F-35 can take on emerging threats. Highly doubtful.

Slide-15: grossly oversimplified.  A real shocker. According to the F-35 sales-force (an important distinction vs. credible analysis) our allies need to buy this defective, weak and expensive aircraft to take on the red forces of evil.

I like slide 22. Funny as without Blue-Force-Tracker and ROVER, the United States Marketing Corps hope of a early deployment to Japan could mean that the very incomplete aircraft, would need a external electro-optical pod strapped to the outside to give a better orbiting field of view and proper connectivity for low-intensity close air support missions. Too funny that someone would be dumb enough to use this aircraft (where the U.K. expects that the F-35B is 20 percent more to own and operate than an F-35C)  at $30k-$40k (or more) per flight hour.

The F-35 is too weak to take on emerging threats. We have two platforms that may be able to have an effect on some anti-access situations: The F-22 and cruise missiles. For everything else, existing technology does the job better-cheaper.






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-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Aviation Week (ARES blog) F-35 posts (2007 to present)
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)

UK claim F-35B STOVL vertical landing issues

A UK report alleges that the F-35B STOVL aircraft will have no vertical landing ability in hot-high, low pressure situations “without having to jettison heavy loads”.

Unknown what this means as the bring-back KPP for the aircraft is 2x 1000 pound air to ground weapons, and 2x air-to-air missiles.

The source states that a solution will be ready by 2020. That by itself sounds like faith-based program management.

Fortunately the USMC never flies where it is hot.

MRH-90 re-baselined with new industry agreement

Minister for Defence Smith and Minister for Defence Material Kelly have announced that the troubled MRH-90 program will be re-baselined under a revised industry partner agreement.

Also the Army will get a free maintenance trainer.

Yippee.

This is an effort to convince us that the NRH-90 has value. I disagree with that theory.

The aircraft is overly complex for Australia’s needs, expensive to procure, and at $31k per flight hour, expensive to operate.

In comparison for practical Army needs, they could have refurbished Huey UH-1s for a small handful of millions or go whole hog and get something that is out of the box very useful, deadly (not unlike this) at night and in the UH-1Y form, salty-capable and joint with our USMC friends.

The MRH-90 is a legacy of years gone by when the federal government had budgets that were not in the red. Today, Defence still has the big-spender mindset.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

According to Defence, the MRH-90 will be considered for removal from the Project of Concern list by the end of 2013.

The NRH-90 and Tiger are a pox on the ADF helicopter force structure.

DOD Report: F-35 Software At Risk For 'Several-Month Delays'

Via Inside Defense (subscription):

DOD Report: F-35 Software At Risk For 'Several-Month Delays'

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program faces the risk of "several-month delays" in software development that could add pressure to the schedule for building, testing and buying fully capable aircraft, the Defense Department warns in a report to Congress.

Yes well, a "fully capable" F-35 has no chance of happening until aircraft with TR-2 hardware (which is needed to drive Block 3 software) arrive with LRIP-6 deliveries.

Add up testing time for actual, complete, alleged go-to-war, SDD-finished aircraft and this is all some years off.

An intelligent buyer of military equipment will not have something to evaluate until 2020 at the earliest. LRIP jets have more in common with a "YF-35" than they do with an "F-35".

LM talking points pose as Heritage study

Interesting how one can have alleged study opportunity associated with grand titles of organisations and still be galactically stupid on a topic.

Note the LM talking points on F-35 woe: "It's the government's fault".

The lack of accountability in the acquisition process can also be seen in the delays in production of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Steve Bucci, director of Heritage’s Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies, described how the original production methodology for the F-35 was designed to put “the best available plane in the hands of the warfighters as soon as possible. It also allows for cuts in cost per copy as efficiencies build upon one another.” Despite the F-35 being crucial to U.S. national security, insufficient planning and inconsistent funding from the government have led to substandard development for this important program.

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-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Aviation Week (ARES blog) F-35 posts (2007 to present)
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)