The Endangered F-35

[Ryan Ruck]

US Navy To Order 33 Fewer F-35s Than Planned In Next 5 Years

March 3, 2014

The U.S. Navy is set to order 33 fewer Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets than originally planned over the five years starting in fiscal 2015 due to budgetary pressures, a defense official said Monday.

In a move that will sharply slow work on the F-35 model built to land on aircraft carriers, the Navy will ask Congress to fund 36 F-35Cs instead of 69, said the official, who could not speak publicly ahead of Tuesday's release of the 2015 budget request.

The Air Force is also deferring orders for four conventional landing F-35 A-models in fiscal 2015, but is expected to resume its planned orders for the jet in 2016 and beyond, said a second source familiar with the plans. It plans to order 238 in total.

The Marine Corps, which expects to start using its F-35 B-model jets in combat from mid-2015, is sticking to its projected orders of 69 jets for the period, the sources said.

That adds up to 343 F-35s to be funded by the U.S. military through fiscal 2019, excluding three Marine Corps jets that could be added to the Pentagon's war funding request, which will be submitted in April or May.

Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale told a conference last week that the department's decision to buy eight fewer F-35s in fiscal 2015 was based on affordability, not the aircraft's performance. Defense officials say they remain committed to the program, and still plan to buy a total of 2,443 F-35s over the coming years for all three military services.

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel last week said the total number to be funded over the next five years could be scaled back further unless Congress revokes automatic budget cuts that are due to resume in fiscal 2016 and beyond.

Lockheed is building three models of the aircraft for the U.S. military and eight international partners that helped fund its development: Britain, Canada, Norway, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Denmark and Australia.

Israel and Japan have also ordered F-35 jets, and South Korea is expected to announce orders for 40 F-35s on March 12.

Lockheed and the Pentagon's F-35 program office had hoped that foreign orders would comprise half or more of the total number of F-35s in a ninth batch of jets, which are funded in fiscal 2015.

However some foreign orders have now been delayed as well and the combined number is expected to be around 57, far short of 73 jets that had been seen as possible at one time, said a third source familiar with the program. The total number will be finalized in the coming months.

[vector7]

Senior Air Force Officer: The F-35 Is An Epic Waste

• Ben Farmer, The Telegraph

• May 18, 2014, 10:36 AM
• 60,941
• 78

Handout/Reuters
Workers assemble the fuselage of a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter at a Lockheed Martin plant in Fort Worth, Texas.

A senior US air force officer says Britain's new stealth jet may be no better than existing aircraft.

Britain's long-delayed $117 million stealth fighter may need to be cancelled because of its poor performance, according to analysis by a senior US Air Force officer.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter being built for British and US forces is based on outdated ideas of air warfare, it is claimed. The aircraft could be unable to evade enemy radar and be too expensive for long campaigns.

The critique in the US Air Force’s own journal concludes that the new fighter may even have “substantially less performance” than some existing aircraft.

Britain is preparing to buy at least 48 of the Lockheed Martin aircraft to replace its scrapped Harrier jump jets; the US military is expected to order more than 2,400.

The $395 billion programme is the most expensive weapons system in history at a time when defence budgets on both sides of the Atlantic are being cut.

The analysis in the Air and Space Power Journal states: “Even if funding were unlimited, reasons might still exist for terminating the F-35.

“Specifically, its performance has not met initial requirements, its payload is low, its range is short, and espionage efforts by the People’s Republic of China may have compromised the aircraft long in advance of its introduction.”

Advances in Russian and Chinese radar defences mean it is not clear that the stealth technology will still work, the analysis warns, adding: “The F-35 might well be the first modern fighter to have substantially less performance than its predecessors.”

The author, Col Michael Pietrucha, suggests the F-35 programme should be put on hold and the US Air Force should instead look at a mix of fighters for the future.

If America pulled out of the programme, Britain would have to follow, analysts said.

Col Pietrucha told The Sunday Telegraph: “All fighter programmes have developed problems. This one is particularly troubling, not necessarily because the aircraft is inherently bad, but because … they are being bought before they have been proven. They have not been tested outside a computer simulation.”

Britain originally said it would buy 138 of the fighters, but has now committed itself to only 48 of the jump jet variant, spread between the RAF and Navy. The first are due to enter service in 2018.

Edward Hunt, a senior aerospace analyst at IHS Jane’s, said the F-35’s performance was the subject of widespread debate in military aviation circles.

“It’s very difficult to peel back what’s being said because lots of people have an axe to grind,” he said.

“The whole F-35 programme hinges on US orders, so any significant cuts … would have significant knock-on effects for partner nations.”

Elizabeth Quintana, senior research fellow for air power at the Royal United Services Institute, said there was a debate to be had about whether it was wise to rely exclusively on a fleet of high-end stealth fighters when a mix of high-end and cheaper, light attack or remotely piloted aircraft could give more options for a range of future battlefields.

The Ministry of Defence defended the F-35 as the “most advanced combat jet in the world”, “designed to be updated … so it can benefit from new technology to counter emerging threats”.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-i...#ixzz32N8lYPjk

Pietrucha_The Comanche and the Albatross

Publish at Calameo or read more publications.

[Ryan Ruck]

U.S. Grounds Entire F-35 Fleet Pending Engine Inspections

July 4, 2014

The U.S. military said it had grounded the entire fleet of 97 Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets until completion of additional inspections of the warplane's single engine built by Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp.

The Pentagon's F-35 program office, Air Force and Navy issued directives on Thursday ordering the suspension of all F-35 flights after a June 23 fire on an Air Force F-35A jet at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida.

The Pentagon said U.S. and industry officials had not pinpointed the cause of the fire, which occurred as a pilot was preparing for takeoff. The pilot was not injured.

The incident is the latest to hit the Pentagon's costliest weapons program, the $398.6 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It followed an in-flight oil leak that triggered mandatory fleetwide inspections of the jets last month.

"Additional inspections of F-35 engines have been ordered, and return to flight will be determined based on inspection results and analysis of engineering data," the Defense Department said in a brief statement issued late on Thursday.

Pratt & Whitney said it was working closely with Air Force officials who are investigating the fire and are inspecting all engines in the fleet. Spokesman Jay DeFrank said it would be inappropriate to comment further since the incident was the subject of an investigation.

The Pentagon's F-35 program office has made determining the cause of the fire its highest priority and it is assessing the impact on flight tests, training and operations of the radar-evading warplane.

A person familiar with the situation said it was premature to rule in or out any quality problem or manufacturing defect.

Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera he wanted to discuss the F-35 problem when he visits the United States next week to tour U.S. bases and meet with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

"On my coming trip to the U.S. I plan to be reviewing troops and will have a chance to discuss the F-35 development on the ground," Onodera told a regular news conference. "I'd like to confirm the details of this accident."

Japan has ordered 42 of the single-engine stealth jets that will be assembled locally by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, maker of the World War II-era Zero fighter. Tokyo may order more F-35s when it decides the future of 100 of its older F-15s.

Australia and South Korea said there had been no change to their plans to buy the fighter jets. Australia plans to buy 58 of the fighters and South Korea intends to buy 40.

"To date the JSF aircraft has accrued 15,000 flight hours While the F135 engine has successfully completed nearly 32,000 hours of testing," a spokesman for Australia's Defence Minister David Johnston said.

"Single engine fighters are operated by many air forces and Defence remains confident the F-35 JSF will be reliable and safe."

Reuters reported on Wednesday that U.S. and British authorities were preparing directives ordering a mandatory engine inspection estimated to take about 90 minutes.

British officials remained part of the discussions with U.S. officials and concurred with the U.S. recommendation to ground the jets, pending further inspection results, the F-35 program office said.

The Pentagon said preparations were continuing for F-35 jets to participate in two UK air shows later this month, but a final decision would be made early next week. The fire has already derailed plans for an F-35 jet to fly by a naming ceremony for Britain's new aircraft carrier on Friday.

[Ryan Ruck]

Analyst: F-35C to Cost $337 Million Apiece in FY15

July 30, 2014

A longtime defense analyst and critic of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program says taxpayers next year will pay between $148 million and $337 million per jet, depending on the model.

Winslow Wheeler, a staff member at the Project On Government Oversight who has worked on national-security issues for the Senate and the Government Accountability Office, detailed his cost estimates for the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made fifth-generation stealth fighter in a recent article on Medium​.com.

Wheeler puts the per-plane production price tag at $148 million for the Air Force’s F-35A, which can take off and land on conventional runways; $251 million for the Marine Corps’ F-35B, which can fly like a plane and hover and land like a helicopter; and $337 million for the Navy’s F-35C, which can take off and land on aircraft carriers. The average cost for all three variants is $178 million, he wrote.

“This data is the empirical, real-world costs to buy, but not to test or develop, an F-35 in 2015,” he wrote. “They should be understood to be the actual purchase price for 2015—what the Pentagon will have to pay to have an operative F-35.”

Wheeler derived the estimates using recent figures from the Senate Appropriations Committee. The figures don’t include research and development costs, but do include funding from the previous year’s appropriations act for “advance procurement” and from aircraft modifications.

Wheeler rejects the use of an aircraft’s so-called flyaway cost to describe its true expense because, he wrote, “those airplanes are incapable of operative flight. They lack the specialized tools, simulators, logistics computers — and much, much more — to make the airplane usable. They even lack the fuel to fly away.”

Michael Rein, a spokesman for Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed’s F-35 program, didn’t immediately return an e-mail seeking comment to the article.

Joe DellaVedova, a spokesman for the Pentagon’s F-35 program office, disputed Wheeler’s estimates, saying they’re misleading and don’t reflect what the department contracts for the planes.

Under the most recent production contract with Lockheed, the department in 2013 agreed to pay $112 million per F-35A, $139 million per F-35B and $130 million per F-35C, DellaVedova said. Those figures, known as unit recurring flyaway costs, include the airframe, engine, mission systems, profit and concurrency, he said.

The government has also shifted from bearing all the financial risk in the program to sharing it with Lockheed and Pratt & Whitney, which makes the F135 engine for the single-engine fighter, DellaVedova said in an e-mail. The contractors now cover 100 percent of any cost overruns and 50 percent of concurrency costs, he said.

“Affordability is the No. 1 priority for the F-35 program,” he said. “You can have the best airplane in the world, but if nobody can afford it, it does you no good. We are doing all we can to drive prices down and we are making a difference.”

Kevin Brancato, a senior defense analyst at Bloomberg Government, said in an e-mail that Wheeler’s estimates appear to be correct, but emphasized that the vast majority of the differences between the unit cost of the variants in fiscal 2015 is due to spreading nonrecurring and support costs over fewer aircraft.

Nonrecurring costs include production tooling, money for buying out parts that will be difficult to source later and money for cost-reduction initiatives, while support costs pay for engineering related to production, he said.

“The Navy’s C variant will be far more expensive in FY15 than the other variants because the Navy will pay $170 million in nonrecurring costs and $247 million in support costs while buying only two aircraft,” Brancato said. “That’s $416 million in total, or $208 million per jet, before the cost of airframes, electronics and engines.

“In contrast, the nonrecurring and support costs are $78 million for each Marine Corps B variant, and just $37 million for each Air Force A variant,” he said. “For fiscal 2015, the Marines requested six jets and the Air Force requested 26.”

Meanwhile, recurring unit production costs — the airframes, electronics and engines — will continue to decline for the F-35A and F-35B, Brancato said. For the F-35C, the number being built will drop to two from four, which will drive up the cost of the airframe, yet the cost of the electronics and engines will still go down, he said.

The Joint Strike Fighter is the Pentagon’s most expensive weapons acquisition program, estimated to cost a total of $398.6 billion for a total of 2,457 aircraft. That breaks down to a per-plane cost of $162 million, including research and development.

The Pentagon in its budget for fiscal 2015, which begins Oct. 1, requested $8.3 billion for 34 of the aircraft, including 26 F-35As, 6 F-35Bs and 2 F-35Cs. The House Appropriations Committee voted to buy an additional four aircraft, for a total of 38, while the Senate panel agreed with the Pentagon’s request — a difference that will have to be resolved in conference negotiations.

The fighter jet missed its highly hyped international debut in the United Kingdom earlier this month. It was scheduled to appear for the first time at three events in the U.K., culminating with a flight demonstration at the Farnborough International Air Show outside London. But the aircraft was a no-show after an engine fire in one of the planes resulted in a fleet-wide grounding and subsequent flight restrictions.

And the F-35 was supposed to be the "low" in the "high/low" mix?

[Ryan Ruck]

Exclusive: Lockheed, Pentagon Reach $4 billion Deal For More F-35 Jets

October 23, 2014

Lockheed Martin Corp and U.S. defense officials have reached agreement on the terms of a contract worth about $4 billion for an eighth batch of 43 F-35 fighter jets, sources familiar with the deal said on Thursday.

The contract will lower the cost of the radar-evading warplane by about 3 percent and includes jets to be built for the U.S. military, Britain and other U.S. allies, according to the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.

The cost of the U.S. Air Force model of the plane, which accounts for 27 of the 43 aircraft, will go down by nearly 4 percent, said one of the sources.

Both sides had expected to reach a deal in May or June, but the negotiations slowed after a June 23 engine failure on an Air Force jet grounded the entire F-35 fleet for several weeks.

Lockheed Chief Financial Officer Bruce Tanner told analysts on Tuesday that the company was close to reaching a deal with the Pentagon office that runs the $399 billion weapons program, the costliest arms project.

The Pentagon reached an agreement earlier this month with engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp , that lowered the cost of the engines that will power the seventh batch of jets by 4.5 percent.

Pratt expects to conclude an agreement with similar cost reductions for engines to power the eighth set of jets after the Lockheed deal is finalized.

Lockheed, the Pentagon's No. 1 supplier, delivered the first airplane from the sixth lot of jets on Wednesday. It was the 23rd jet to be delivered this year of 36 that are due.

Lockheed has said it has a plan to deliver all 36 jets that were slated for this year, despite the grounding earlier this summer and some flight restrictions that remain in place.

Lockheed and the Pentagon said they were still finalizing the eighth Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP 8).

"We are encouraged by progress taking place and look forward to an agreement in the near future," said Lockheed spokesman Mike Rein.

[Ryan Ruck]

US Squadrons 'May Use UK Carrier' For Operations

November 26, 2014

The Royal Navy may ask US squadrons to fly off its new aircraft carrier following delays to its new F35B fighters, BBC Newsnight has learned.

MoD insiders said the US Marine Corps would be offered the use of HMS Queen Elizabeth for flight operations.

The UK plans to have its first F35 squadron operational by 2018, but Newsnight has learned that there may be further delays.

The MoD said it was not aware of any further delay to the timetable.

The plan is for one squadron of British F35s to be ready for service at sea by 2021. But even if it is achieved, it will create a gap of years where the Queen Elizabeth is ready but British squadrons are not.

For the past year defence analysts had been expecting the MoD to order 14 of the new jets.

UK pilots

In February, Newsnight was told that it would be placed "within days". But persistent doubts about the F35's enormously complex software, and an engine fire this summer caused successive delays to the decision.

When the British purchase was announced, last month, it was for just four of the planes. The MoD says that this order will allow trials to start from the Queen Elizabeth on time with "UK F35Bs, flown by UK pilots".

But the slowdown in the expected purchasing rate is bound to delay the aircraft's entry into squadron service, say defence insiders.

Former chief of the defence staff General Lord Richards told Newsnight that asking US jets to fly from the Queen Elizabeth would be a sensible way of bridging the gap between the carrier being completed, and a British squadron of jets being available.

He said: "If we can catch up using American aircraft in the intervening period that would make good sense."

He denied that it was humiliating for Britain not to have its own jets ready when it comes into service because the ships could be used for different functions such as carrying helicopters or troops.

However, the MoD said on Wednesday that it was "not aware" of any further delay to the timetable for the first operational squadron.

Even if the timetable is kept, senior naval officers are nervous that a gap in capability during 2018-2021, coming at a time when the defence budget will come under fresh pressure after the next general election, could damage their chances of keeping the two new carriers, which they regard as central to remaining a "first division naval power".

With a Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) expected to get under way in 2015, the huge ships, which have long been the subject of controversy in Whitehall, are likely to come under fresh scrutiny.

Newsnight has been told that many decisions relating to the new ships, including such questions as their communications fit, are now being put on hold until the SDSR. Naval chiefs are therefore determined to get them to sea with a credible looking complement of aircraft on their decks, as soon as possible.

An MoD spokesman said: "The Lightning II [F-35B] Force will be manned by Royal Navy and RAF pilots and we can be clear that aircraft used for the first Class Flying Trials in 2018 will be UK F35Bs, flown by UK pilots.

"We are also working closely with our key allies, specifically the US Marine Corps and the US Navy, to regenerate our carrier strike capability and we will seek further opportunities to do so in the future."

[Ryan Ruck]

The USAF Has To Re-Paint Its Trucks Because The F-35 Can’t Fly On Warm Fuel

December 8, 2014

After a year of several fleet-wide groundings for the F-35, the latest problem to plague the fifth-generation fighter is forcing the U.S. Air Force to revamp an entirely separate fleet to support the military’s most expensive plane yet.

The F-35 can only fly on jet fuel under a certain temperature due to a range of heating issues attributed to the F-35B variant’s short takeoff and vertical landing engine. According to the USAF, the dark-green trucks that carry that fuel absorb too much heat from the sun to keep the planes in the sky. That presents a serious logistical problem for an advanced multi-role fleet expected to maintain U.S. air superiority in areas of potential conflict such as the Middle East and South Pacific — areas with no shortage of sunlight.

For the time being the Air Force is addressing the issue by painting the tanker trailers of the trucks a bright reflective white to repel sunlight absorption. That presents a whole new problem for the safety of the trucks, which will be necessary to support the Joint Strike Fighter on forward deployments where large white tankers full of highly flammable fuel could make easy targets.

“We painted the refuelers white to reduce the temperature of fuel being delivered to the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter,” Senior Airman Jacob Hartman of the 56th Logistics Readiness Squadron at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona said in an Air Force news report. “The F-35 has a fuel temperature threshold and may not function properly if the fuel temperature is too high, so after collaborating with other bases and receiving waiver approval from [the Air Education Training Command], we painted the tanks white.”

“It ensures the F-35 is able to meet its sortie requirements,” Chief Master Sgt. Ralph Resch, fuels manager of the 56th LRS, said in the report. “We are taking proactive measures to mitigate any possible aircraft shutdowns due to high fuel temperatures in the future.”

“This is the short-term goal to cool the fuel for the F-35; however, the long-term fix is to have parking shades for the refuelers.”

The Air Force also plans to try incorporating reflective paint into the trucks’ standard green to reduce the heat absorption and maintain cover. Though the cost of the paint is $3,900 per-truck, it’s undoubtedly cheaper than another costly fix to the entire fleet, which uses the fuel as a coolant to absorb heat from the JSF’s powerful subsystems before passing into the engine.

[American Patriot]

Warm fuel....

huh?

WTF?

Design flaws.... if you ask me.

[Malsua]

You know the B2 Stealth Bomber? Did you know that if it flys into the rain, its anti-radar coating needs fixed? That's right, a plane that flies into the clouds can't get wet.

[American Patriot]

I have heard such things. Didn't know it was true.

I DO know the SR71 leaked like a sieve though. Seen it. Dripping fuel. Until it reaches altitude. Something about contraction in the cold or something. I forget.

[Malsua]

I have heard such things. Didn't know it was true.

I DO know the SR71 leaked like a sieve though. Seen it. Dripping fuel. Until it reaches altitude. Something about contraction in the cold or something. I forget.

Yes, the SR-71 has such an expansion problem that the tank seals had to leak on the ground or they'd rip the plane apart at speed. In fact, the plane loses so much fuel on the ground and takeoff that it has to refuel immediately.

[vector7]

Pentagon Worries That Russia Can Now Outshoot U.S. Stealth Jets

American fighter planes are the fastest, most maneuverable jets in the world. But their weapons are becomingly increasingly obsolete—and that has some in the U.S. Air Force spooked

December 4, 2014

High flying and fast, the F-22 Raptor stealth jet is by far the most lethal fighter America has ever built. But the Raptor—and indeed all U.S. fighters—have a potential Achilles’ heel, according to a half-dozen current and former Air Force officials. The F-22’s long-range air-to-air missiles might not be able to hit an enemy aircraft, thanks to new enemy radar-jamming techniques.

The issue has come to the fore as tensions continue to rise with Russia and a potential conflict between the great powers is once again a possibility—even if a remote one.

“We—the U.S. [Department of Defense]—haven’t been pursuing appropriate methods to counter EA [electronic attack] for years,” a senior Air Force official with extensive experience on the F-22 told The Daily Beast. “So, while we are stealthy, we will have a hard time working our way through the EA to target [an enemy aircraft such as a Russian-built Sukhoi] Su-35s and our missiles will have a hard time killing them.”

The problem is that many potential adversaries, such as the Chinese and the Russians, have developed advanced digital radio frequency memory (DRFM) jammers. These jammers, which effectively memorize an incoming radar signal and repeat it back to the sender, seriously hamper the performance of friendly radars.

Worse, these new jammers essentially blind the small radars found onboard air-to-air missiles like the Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAM, which is the primary long-range weapon for all U.S. and most allied fighter planes.

That means it could take several missile shots to kill an enemy fighter, even for an advanced stealth aircraft like the Raptor. “While exact Pk [probability of kill] numbers are classified, let’s just say that I won’t be killing these guys one for one,” the senior Air Force official said. It’s the “same issue” for earlier American fighters like the F-15, F-16, or F/A-18.

Another Air Force official with experience on the stealthy new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter agreed. “AMRAAM’s had some great upgrades over the years, but at the end of the day, it’s old technology and wasn’t really designed with today’s significant EA in mind,” this official said.

Like boxers, every missile has a reach, a range, a limit to how far it can hit. In the not-too-distant future, the AMRAAM might also be out-ranged by new weapons that are being developed around the world. Particularly, Russia is known to be developing an extremely long-range weapon called the K-100 that has far better reach than anything currently in existence.

The problem is not a new one. Historically, the Pentagon has always prioritized the development of new fighters over the development new weapons—it’s a uniquely American blind spot. During the 1970s, the then brand new F-15A Eagle carried the same antiquated armament as the Vietnam-era F-4 Phantom II. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the F-15 received a weapon in the form of the AMRAAM that could take full advantage of its abilities. The same applies to short-range weapons—it wasn’t until the early 2000s with the introduction of the AIM-9X that the U.S. had a dogfighting weapon that could match or better the Russian R-73 Archer missile.

The Air Force officials all said that some of the American missiles would get through during a fight—there is no question of that—but it would take a lot more weapons than anyone ever expected. The problem is that fighter aircraft don’t carry that many missiles.

The Raptor carries six AMRAAMs and two shorter range AIM-9 Sidewinder missiles inside its weapons bays. At the moment, the F-35 carries only four AMRAAM missiles inside its weapons bays, but that might be expanded to six in the future. Older fighters like the Boeing F-15 Eagle carry no more than eight missiles—while the F-16 usually carries no more than six weapons.

That means that if a fighter has to fire—for instance—three missiles to kill a single enemy fighter, the Pentagon is facing a serious problem.

“Getting a first shot is one thing,” said a former Air Force fighter pilot with extensive experience with Russian weapons. “Needing another shot when you have expended your load is another when your force structure is limited in terms of the number of platforms available for a given operation.”

There are some potential solutions, but all of them mean spending more money to develop new missiles. former Air Force intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Dave Deptula said it’s “critical” that the U.S. and its allies move “air-to-air weapons into a future where they can effectively deal with adversary electronic attack.”

One relatively simple fix would be to develop a missile that picks out its targets using radars with a completely different frequency band. Current fighter radars and missiles operate on what is called the X-band, but they don’t necessarily have to. “Getting out of X band is on option,” said one senior Air Force official.

The Pentagon could also develop a new missile that combines multiple types of sensors such as infrared and radar into the same weapon—which has been attempted without much success in the past.

Right now, the Defense Department—led by the Navy—is working to increase the range of the AIM-9X version of the Sidewinder by 60 percent to give the Pentagon’s fighter fleet some sort of counter to the jamming problem. But even with the extended reach, the modified Sidewinder won’t have anywhere close to the range of an AMRAAM.

The other option is to stuff fighters like the F-22 and F-35 with more missiles that are smaller. Lockheed Martin, for example, is developing a small long-range air-to-air missile called the “Cuda” that could double or triple the number of weapons carried by either U.S. stealth fighter. “Look to a new generation of U.S. air-to-air missiles, like Cuda, to neutralize any potential numerical advantage,” one senior industry official said.

The industry official said that despite the small size, new weapons like the Cuda can offer extremely impressive range because it doesn’t have an explosive warhead—it just runs into the target and destroys it with sheer kinetic energy.

But the senior Air Force official expressed deep skepticism that such a weapon could be both small and far-reaching. “I doubt you can solve range and the need for a large magazine with the same missile,” he said.

This official added that future weapons would be far better at countering enemy jamming—so much so that future fighters will not need to have the sheer speed and maneuverability of an aircraft like the Raptor. “I think top end speed, super cruise, and acceleration will all decline in importance as weapons advance in range and speed,” he said.

For a military that’s committed hundreds of billions of dollars to such advanced fighters, such developments might not exactly be welcome news.

Russia to hold more large-scale military maneuvers in 2015

Published time: December 01, 2014 17:23 Get short URL

A Shilka self-propelled anti aircraft system fires during the battalion task force drill of the Baltic Fleet's coastal defense troops supported by air force at the Pavenkovo base of the Baltic Fleet, Kaliningrad Region. (RIA Novosti / Igor Zarembo)

Tags
Air Force, Arms, Army, Military, Russia

Tens of thousands of Russian military personnel will take part in Center 2015 strategic exercises that will be held simultaneously in several areas both in Russia and abroad, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The strategic military exercises for military personnel in the Central Federal District, called Center 2015, will be held in summer through autumn 2015. They are planned as the largest exercises of the year.

“The exercises will be held in the summer training period simultaneously in different areas within Russian Federation and abroad,” the Defense Ministry’s statement said. “They will be extended in time and will unite tens of thousands soldiers and military personnel of the Central Military district, divisions and units of armed forces and other national security and defense agencies under a single command.”

According to Colonel General Vladimir Zarudnitsky, the military personnel will work out a significant part of drills in unfamiliar areas. The ministry will test the system of territorial defense and mobilization deployment. The personnel will be able to test new equipment and to give feedback to the defense industry.


Russian military vehicles during the joint anti-terrorist Russian-Indian drills, Indra-2014, at the Prudboy range in the Volgograd Region. (RIA Novosti / Kirill Braga)

The commanders of battalion tactical groups will have peculiar tasks in which they will have to act quickly and unconventionally under conditions of shortened time limits, using the full range of forces and equipment.

“Center 2015 will be the climax of the Central Military District troops training that started this year,” Zarudnitsky said. The new training year in the Russian army starts December 1.

The Defense Ministry plans other events in 2015, such as the Army Games international competition, Comradeship-in-Arms of the Air Force, Interaction of the Collective Rapid Reaction Force of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, and Union Shield joint drills with Belarus.

“Conducting the scheduled events will contribute to increasing the combat readiness and the high quality performance of the tasks set before them,” Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said in a statement.

In 2014 Russian military held numerous maneuvers in several districts of Russia including two major exercise events - Vostok-2014 and Russia-China Naval Interaction-2014. Vostok 2014 has been the most prominent military drill held in 11 areas in far eastern part of Russia with about 150,000 people participating in it.

READ MORE: Surprise drill puts over 100,000 troops through their paces in Russia’s Far East

		Russia
Russia to keep SS-18 ballistic missiles in service until 2019
14:17 | 10/ 04/ 2009

MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) - The RS-20V Voyevoda-M (SS-18 Satan) intercontinental ballistic missile, introduced almost 21 years ago, will remain in service until 2019, the commander of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces (SMF) said on Friday.

"The extension in the service life of the [Voyevoda-M] missile will allow us to keep these missiles, the most powerful in the world, in the SMF for another eight-10 years," Col. Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov said.

"We have no technical difficulties in accomplishing this task," he added.
The general also said Russia was developing a new ICBM comparable to the SS-18, and would gradually decommission older versions of the missile "in order to ensure nuclear safety."

According to publicly available sources, Russia currently has 88 SS-18 missile silo launchers, most of them deployed at the Dombarovsky missile base in the Orenburg Region, southern Urals.

The missile is armed with a warhead fitting 10 multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) with a yield of 550 to 750 kilotons each.

It has a maximum range of 11,000 km (6,800 miles) with a launch mass of over 210 tons and a payload of 8.8 tons.

Air Force's Spoiled F-35 "Superjet" Has No Code to Shoot Its Gun until 2019

Armed w/ only 2-10 missiles, the F-35 will be deemed "combat ready" in 2015, but won't have gun code till 2019, despite 20 million LOC

After burning through hundreds of billions in expenditures (over $300B USD to date) along its much-delayed development arc, the "joint strike fighter" (JSF) -- also known as the F-35 Lightning II -- has earned the dubious distinction of being the most expensive combat aircraft in history. But according to a new report by The Daily Beast, the spoiled self-proclaimed "superjet" can't even fire its gun.


I. Duck Hunt: Lack of Gun Leaves JSF A Pricy Flying Duck

Yes, according to the report, which cites a number of Air Force pilots and senior officials as sources, the JSF -- with an estimated lifetime cost in the trillions -- after a decade of development the pampered project sports a gun that is currently little more than a decoration hanging as dead weight.

_{The JSF's gun is little more than dead weight at present, USAF sources say.
[Image Source: Firearms World]}

You could say after all that throwing good money after bad, in hopes of developing the "fighter of the future", Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and its subcontractors owe the American taxpayers the most dominant dogfighter in history.

Indeed Lockheed Martin promised the JSF would be a truly unprecedented design -- the first craft to be able to function both as a bomber and as dogfight-ready fighter. And it would have a number of customized designs for various takeoff scenarios and combat environments. In short, Lockheed Martin promised the mother of all fighters.

But taxpayers shouldn't be holding their breath as Lockheed Martin's $400B USD bid has been stuttering along for well over half a decade now. And if things aren't going well, the new report suggests the publicly acknowledged flaws are just the tip of the proverbial iceberg.

Notably, the report cites roughly half a dozen USAF sources as confirming that the JSF has been banned from using its machine gun in combat until it receives a software update. And that update isn't expected to arrive until 2019. Until then the JSF isn't quite a sitting (or flying, more aptly) duck, but it's close to it.

_{Immobile and with a crucial piece of weaponry crippled, a dogfight with the F-35 is looking less like a fair fight and more like a "duck hunt". [Image Source: lacosta/Deviant Art]}

The gun is dead rate because after roughly 25 million lines of code it's written (code, incidentally, China might have stolen for free), Lockheed Martin apparently couldn't be bothered to write in code to connect the JSF's trigger to its gun. Air Force officials say that Lockheed Martin is telling them that it's going to take another four full years -- until 2019 -- to integrate the seemingly simple code into its web.

In the meantime the "operational" jet will be a bit lame, officials warn. But, it's a moot point many pilots say, as the craft's engine is too slow and clumsy for dogfights anyhow.

The only problem? Americans have to pay the bill for a supposed superfighter.

Enter the JSF, the spoiled superfighter du jour.

II. $400 Billion Dollar Baby

Word of the new issues come hot on the heels of troubling reports of potential problems with hot fuel. While it was unclear whether or not the fuel concerns were overblown given the Air Force's statement, the issue with the JSF's rotary cannon -- if true -- is arguably an undefensible strike against the already ailing JSF.

To be fair, this problem isn't only on Lockheed Martin, doesn't make the F-35's gun system. That role was subcontracted to General Dynamics Corp. (GD). That said, the failure appears to be mainly on Lockheed's front as GD delivered it by 2007 a functional gun that was below the required weight. But thanks to Lockheed dropping the ball, one system that looked a much-layup for the embattled jet has become the latest costly turnover.

The JSF is outfitted with a single four barrel 25 mm rotary machine gun cannon, located in its underbelly. Dubbed the GAU-22/A, the General Dynamics gun seemed to be a good fit for dogfighting duty as it's a tweaked version of the heavier five-barrel GAU-12 "Equalizer" cannon used in Boeing Comp.'s (BA) AV-8B Harrier II jump jet.

_{The F-35's 25 mm "Equalizer" machine gun cannon was supposed to be a layup. Instead it's turned into the latest debacle for the jet. [Image Source: GD]}

Lockheed Martin itself already has working code for an Equalizer, as it uses the GD gun in its AC-130 gunship. Some readers may recall the AC-130 as the primary craft used in USAF aerial directed energy weapons (laser) platform testing. The AC-130 is a variant of the C-130 Hercules transport plane. And the AC-130 fleet sports working GAU-12 Equalizer cannons.

But for some unexplained reason Lockheed Martin claims it can't come up with code for a design it is already is using in the field. And it says it won't have that code finished until roughly half a decade from now, 3 to 4 years after the craft was supposed to be fully "operational".

_{Lockheed has code for an almost identical cannon working for its AC-130 gunship (pictured), but somehow porting that code to the JSF codebase is supposedly taking 15+ years of labor.
[Image Source: Wikimedia Commons]}

The USAF source vented frustration over the SNAFU to The Daily Beast, grubmling:

There will be no [option to fire the] gun until [the Joint Strike Fighter’s Block] 3F [software], there is no software to support it now or for the next four-ish years. Block 3F is slated for release in 2019, but who knows how much that will slip?

In other words, it would seem that by digitizing what was once a simple mechanical function, it appears that Lockheed Martin has warped simple machine gun trigger pulling into a decade-and-a-half development process.

But the failure grows even more bizarre, when you consider that Lockheed has working code for a nearly identical machine gun in use in other planes designed. That's right -- if the report is to be believed -- Lockheed Martin reportedly is claiming to needs more than 15+ years of coding to port the logic to fire a fixed machine gun cannon with one less barrel and a slightly different firing rate.

If one were paranoid they might suspect that such a farcical seeming claim might be a fabrication designed to obfuscate the apparent failings of the jet's engine design -- failings that have severely limited its speed and maneuverability. But we'll take the report at its face value, and assume that if true it's just a matter of gross incompetence on Lockheed Martin's part.

II. Coding a Clusterf*ck, or How to Write a 24+ Million Line Code That Can't Do Its Duty

It's not altogether surprising to hear the source of this latest black mark, given that software has been one of the biggest problems on the relatively long list of issues with the Defense Department's spoiled jet. Part of the problem is simply size.

In layman's terms the craft's code is what professionals might refer to as a "clusterf*ck", a technical term muttered in cases like these under bated breaths to colleagues.

_{The F-35 sports unquestionably the most advanced collection of combat avionics ever formulated, but most of its systems appear to be buggy and broken to various degrees.}

And how could it not be? At over 20 million lines of code, the JSF's codebase is one of the largest pieces of software ever created and is perhaps a textbook definition of an overambitious doomed design.

Lockheed packed the JSF with an unprecedented array of sensors, but struggled to put them to use in a meaningful way as code ballooned to 24 million lines. While Lockheed Martin has said it hopes to trim down the existing code while adding more functionality, the pace of patches has been reduced to a snail crawl given the size.

Simple changes in the code can literally affect tens, if not hundreds of thousands of lines of code, potentially introducing hundreds of mission-threatening bugs. It's questionable whether it's even possible to thoroughly bugcheck such a massive code. There may be a way, but it's become increasingly clear in recent years that if there is a way, Lockheed Martin is unlikely the one to channel that coding magic mojo.

Bugs aside, it also appears Lockheed Martin has lost touch of the fighter's combat needs, in terms of prioritizing features. According to the report, even with its well over 20 million lines of code, there's no code yet to connect the pilot's trigger to the rotary cannon, so the cannon is essentially dead weight.

_{Lockheed won't comment on its bizzare inability to integrate GD's machine gun cannon.}

Further, the report says this isn't just an issue with the USAF variant, the F-35A. While the USAF's version might be hoped to be the only version with a dead gun -- given that it's the only version with an internally housed gun (housed by the engine inlet) -- it turns out that the more traditionally mounted guns are also not working, according to the report.

The report states that the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B variant (targeted at the U.S. Marines) and the carrier-based F-35C variant (targeted at the U.S. Navy) also have crippled guns. And like the USAF codebase, it sounds as if the fixes for the variants are rather far away:

Neither Lockheed nor the F-35 Joint Program Office responded to inquiries about the status of the jet’s gun... The Navy and Marine Corps versions of the F-35 have differing configurations and rely on an external gun pod. The software won’t be ready for those jets for years, either.

_{The F-35B (vertical takeoff version; pictured) and F-35C (carrier version) reportedly also have dead guns.}

A USAF official suggested Lockheed's refusal to promise a working gun until nearly half a decade from now, may be a sign that the project is in far more trouble than Lockheed Martin will admit. While the craft will fly, its functionality as a combat fighter is truly in question, the source indicates, remarking:

To me, the more disturbing aspect of this delay is that it represents yet another clear indication that the program is in serious trouble. Lockheed Martin is clearly in a situation where they are scrambling to keep their collective noses above the waterline, and they are looking to push non-critical systems to the right in a moment of desperation.

One must ask the obvious question -- if the gun can't fire on any F-35 variant -- what does the craft have to defend itself with?

III. Pilots Better be Good Shots or be Skilled at Fleeing From Enemy Jets

That's a pretty important question, given that the Pentagon recently cheerfully declared that the craft Lockheed Martin's deputy general manager of the JSF program, Jeff Babione, claimed to reporters in Sept. 2014 that the craft would be "combat ready" (become operational) by "mid-2015".

_{After many delays the F-35 is supposedly will be "operational" next year. [Image Source: Lockheed Martin]}

Well, the glass-a-tiny-bit-full is that it turns out that it may indeed be able to fire something in a dogfight. While the rotary cannon is its primary dogfighting weapon, the F-35 does have some secondary air-to-air weapons that reportedly are working -- namely a pair of missiles.

_{The F-35 isn't entirely defenseless; it packs up to 10 air-to-air missiles.}

The F-35's wingtips act as external hardpoints that can carry AIM-9X Sidewinder and AIM-132 ASRAAM short-range air-to-air missiles (AAM). The current codebase reportedly supports firing those two missiles at aerial targets.

_{The F-35 boasts some mean missiles or bombs on its wingtips.}

The craft also has four underwing pylons on each, which are capable of carrying a total of eight AIM-120 AMRAAM BVR air-to-air missiles (AAM) in its full air-to-air combat configuration. It's unclear whether those missiles are currently ready to fire, but the reports seems to suggest they may be.

So the F-35 has at best, at present ten shots. If the enemy is able to field more than ten fighters per F-35, the best outcome the F-35 can hope for is a hit-and-run. That's a major concern, given that lifetime costs per jet are over $600M USD at current estimates. Of that, about $170M USD is currently in the up-front purchase cost. By contrast, Russia's Mikoyan MiG-29 has a per-unit cost of around $28M USD, based on recent purchases.

So you can buy six MiG-29s for the up front costs of one JSF. Or if you prefer something a bit more modern you can get Russian Sukhoi Su-35 jets for around $40M USD (which would buy you roughly four per JSF).

_{It can also pack up to eight AMRAAM missiles for dogfights.}

Given that the JSF has only ten missiles, the pilots better be solid shots or they may find themselves swatted by masses of the older, less expensive, less complicated MiG interceptors. With the JSF, the old Revolutionary War Swamp Fox adage, "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day," might apply.

Unfortunately, the JSF appears to be heavier on the running and lighter on the fighting side of the equation, according to Air Force pilots quoted in the report. And the problem is it's not particularly good at running away, so it might not survive after all, according to pilots. In other words, it might be better off staying where it's spent so much of its time in recent years -- at home on the ground. The skies are a dangerous place after all.

IV. Ground Support? Nah...

Dangers aside, the lack of a gun creates secondary problems. More specifically, the flaw seriously endangers the JSF's from assuming its long-promised, long-delayed role in ground combat as well.

In recent years the USAF has been forced to realize what it should have known from way back in World War II -- that in many combat scenarios, you need a smaller caliber weapon to precisely target ground combatants.



The USAF has leaned on F-15 and F-16s for strafing targets fighting in close proximity to U.S. forces. In such situations, the kinds of GPS-guided bombs that the JSF can carry on its hard points are useless, as they would likely result in massive friendly fire casualties.

A USAF pilot told The Daily Beast:

GPS-guided munitions with long times of fall are useless when the ground commander doesn’t know exactly where the fire is coming from, or is withdrawing and the enemy is pursuing. GPS munitions are equally useless when dropped from an aircraft when the pilot has near zero ability to track the battle with his own eyes.

And this isn't just a "whoopsie". It's a potentially defect with potentially deadly outcomes.

Given that the USAF is racing to phase out its fleet of F-15s and F-16s, pilots warn that only the F-22 will available for such ground strikes, given the F-35s woes. And that puts the lives of American soldiers on the ground at risk by leaving soldiers in close-quarters combat without a viable air-strike option in some cases.



One pilot comments:

Lack of forward firing ordnance in a CAS supporting aircraft is a major handicap. CAS fights are more fluid than air interdiction, friendlies and targets move... Oftentimes quickly. The ability to mark the target with rockets and attack the same target 10 seconds later is crucial.

Could the F-22 make this shortcoming a moot point? Perhaps, but that raises problems of its own.

With the F-22s already tasked with picking up the F-35s slack in dogfighting, in a combat scenario against a well outfitted enemy with a workable air force, the USAF might be forced to save the F-22s for ground support, which in turn likely would force a grounding of the pricey F-35 bombers to avoid putting it at risk. This would also endanger lives as ground soldiers fighting at a greater distance might not have the air support they need against artillery.

V. Russian Su-35S Jets Enjoy Nearly Twice the Firing Time at a Fourth the Price

And according to the report, the JSF's gun issues will hardly be solved by the enabling of the gun, sometime in the somewhat-distant future. The article points out that even after the gun is enable 3 to 4 years after the craft is deemed "operational", the gun will remain an ineffective tool, given how fast it fires.

_{The F-35 packs a number of weapons stations, but the gun is among the most crucial to ground strafing and dogfights.}

The gun 3,300 rounds per minute -- a deadly barrage. The only problem is that the USAF variant (the F-35A) carries only 180 rounds in its ammo pods.

_{F-35s carry up to 220 rounds, w/ capacity varying by model (image's 225 round figure is outdated).}

The other two variants used by the U.S. Navy and Marines (the F-35B and F-35C) carry 220 rounds. So in its two forms, the pilot has around 3.3 seconds (F-35A) to 4 seconds (F-35B/C) of firing time... maybe enough for several quick flicks of the trigger.

_{The F-35's rotary cannon fires at a much faster rate than rival designs, but does not carry a bigger magazine. [Image Source: Baidu]}

A possible solution would be to lowering the firing rate. Lockheed's AC-130 gunship was forced to do exactly that for similar reasons. It reduced the rate of fire from the blistering 3,600-4,200 rounds per minute mark, down to 1,800 rounds per minute. If the F-35 adopted a similar firing rate, it could stretch its firing time to 6 seconds (F-35A) to 7.3 seconds (F-35B/C) -- somewhat better.

To return to the MiG-29 analogy, its onboard cannon, the GSh-30-1 30 mm cannon, fires at 1,500 rounds per minute and has 100 rounds in current variants -- good for 4 seconds of fire time.

_{You can buy roughly six MiG-29 fighters (pictured) or four Sukhoi Su-35 interceptors for the price of one JSF. And they have working guns to boot.}

So when Lockheed does at last activate the cannon, it will only match the MiG-29's firing time, unless it slows the firing down. And the Su-35 boasts a 150 round magazine @ 1,500 rounds per minute, so it will have nearly twice the firing time of the JSF unless Lockheed and GD slow down the firing rate. At best, the JSF will have a similar total firing time to the Su-35, at four times the cost.

Of course, the F-35 has a lot of countermeasures that should give potential combatants fits in dogfights. But the compelling question is whether Lockheed's code will even be able to make the high-tech deterrents effective, given all the problems with basic functionality like the gun.

Further the F-35 -- with its problem-plagued monolithic single engine -- isn't looking overly agile. When you consider it will face potentially four Su-35s or six MiG-29s, the picture isn't pretty. At best the Pentagon will have to outspend its foreign rivals. But it's hardly getting bang for its buck.

_{The Sukhoi Su-35 is among Russia's deadliest fighter designs. [Image Source: Takeoff Magazine]}

Maybe that's why some former "top guns" like retired Australian RAAF officer WGCDR Chris Mills (AM, BSc, MSc(AFIT)) claims that the JSF might be smoked by fully outfitted Su-35S in one-on-one combat (in a scenario where F-35s were mixed with Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptors in a combined squadron).

The USAF ardently attacked that claim, as did Lockheed Martin. And at the time, sentiments seemed to be in their favor. Most -- even Rand Corp., the company conducting the study behind that claim (the August 2008 Pacific Vision simulation) -- seemed to agree that the Australian conclusions seemed a bit overblown.

But ironically they might not have been. The simulations were performed before the dead gun came to light. And they were also performed before the rash of engine troubles that have triggered a series of operational limits downgrades that have severely constrained the craft's speed and turning capabilities.

_{A 2008 simulation suggested a quartet of Sukhoi Su-35 interceptors could hold their own with a mixed quartet of F-35s and F-22s. [Imae Source: CzechAirSpotter]}

It'd be pretty interesting to see how the 2008 simulation (with both crafts fully outfitted with missiles and machine gun rounds) would play out, if the guns in the JSF went dark. Based on the statements from pilots, it sounds as if the JSF in its current state (a mired mess) might be lucky to perform as well as it did in the 2008 simulation, in that it'd be essentially dead wet, leaning on the F-22s in the squadron.

One Pentagon pilot familiar with the F-35A testing said to The Daily Beast, regarding the dead gun:

The jet can’t really turn anyway, so that is a bit of a moot point.

Another commented:

The JSF is so heavy, it won’t accelerate fast enough to get back up to fighting speed. Bottom line is that it will only be a BVR [beyond visual range] airplane.

"What do you call a fighter that can't fight in the air?"

"A joint strike fighter."

It sounds like a bad punchline, but it's increasingly looking like an accurate summary of the situation.

VI. "Hey Baby There Ain't No Easy Way Out (I Won't Back Down)"

General Mike Hostage, head of Air Combat Command is among the JSF's sternest defenders. And he raises some good points of why abandoning the fighter -- damaged goods and all -- would be a disastrous outcome for taxpayers. That said, he also has seemingly admitted that some of the criticisms of the design are valid.

_{USAF Gen. Mike Hostage has vowed to battle "to the death" cuts to F-35 orders. [Image Source: AP]}

In Jan. 2014 that he vowed "to the death" to avoid cuts to the USAF's planned 1,763 jet purchase. He was adamant about phasing out the trusty F-15 and F-16 from active duty, in lieu of the alluring, but mercurial JSF.

Technical Gen. Hostage is right about one thing. He says that if Congress forces the Pentagon to back away from the JSF, it will show allies that the craft is "weak in the knees." Indeed, this is the case. If the JSF purchase orders in the U.S. are trimmed, there's little reason to believe most allies won't respond even more aggressively in cutting their orders.

And that's not necessarily good news for U.S. taxpayers, as -- remember -- they've already paid $400B USD, an expenditure which was justified by the promise of foreign orders cutting the cost of Pentagon orders.

_{There's no easy escape route for the F-35, given the massive amount already spent.
[Image Source: Lockheed Martin]}

On the other hand, if the JSF can't even fire its guns it's questionable whether keeping it is a good option either. Even the USAF seems to recognize the deep hole it's dug itself into with its massive spending. Gen. Hostage in his defense of the craft ultimately said something rather damning about it -- he admitted that the JSF was not meant as an air-superiority fighter.

That's a pretty interesting admission, given Lockheed's claims of its air-to-air prowess.

VII. The Bomber That Wanted to be a Real Fighter

While the JSF isn't dead, its problems put the USAF between the metaphorical "rock and a hard place." It appears that the U.S. taxpayers have been rickrolled into an overpriced new stealth bomber masquerading as a jet fighter. The old phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind when examining the JSF, but that's perhaps a bit harsh. The JSF should be a passable bomber and air-to-ground missile platform.

The problem, though, is that the Pentagon didn't exactly need a new bomber -- it had plenty of functional designs already. The real issue isn't the JSF's capability to do something in combat, rather it's that Lockheed Martin convinced the Pentagon to pay boatloads of money for a craft that was billed as a terrific bomber and fighter jet rolled into one. The latter part increasingly appears to be a misleading claim at best.

_{Pinocchio wanted to be a real boy; the F-35 wanted to be a real fighter. Both had a tendency to fib now and then. Pinocchio, happily, became a real boy in the end. Unfortunately the F-35 might not have such a cheery fairy tale ending. [Image Source: Disney]}

The senior USAF who questioned whether the program was in deeper trouble also acknowledged to The Daily Beast the apparent truth:

From an air-to-air standpoint, an argument could be made that the F-35A not having a functional gun—or any gun, for that matter—will have little to no impact. Heck, it only has 180 rounds anyway. I would be lying if I said there exists any plausible tactical air-to-air scenario where the F-35 will need to employ the gun. Personally, I just don’t see it ever happening and think they should have saved the weight [by getting rid of the gun altogether].

In other words, however "good" the JSF is in its true roll -- as a bomber -- it could have been better (more maneuverable) and cheaper if it had just been forthright about its limitations and try to be the best bomber it could be. Then again, Congress might never have authorized the record-setting project were it not billed as a boon to air superiority, a claim that by the sound of it, even Pentagon officials are now quietly admitting was malarkey.

_{A battle tested F-16 (foreground) babysits its replacement, the overpriced, spoiled fighter jet. It needs the help -- were it to get in a real airfight, the F-35 can't turn quickly due to its broken engine and reportedly has no working machine gun. [Image Source: USAF]}

With the engine struggling along and with its gun dead, one can only hope that the F-35 is guarded by a large contingent of F-22 Raptors who can coddle and protect the vulnerable, spoiled Lockheed superjet. Source: The Daily Beast
- See more at: http://www.dailytech.com/Report+Air+....jgZNcSdE.dpuf




A Tale of Two Gatling Guns: F-35 vs. A-10

by Brendan McGarry on January 2, 2015





The Daily Beast’s Dave Majumdar is out with another excellent story about how the gun on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the Pentagon’s newest and most expensive fighter jet, won’t work for another four years — at the earliest.

That’s because the software that lets pilots shoot the Gatling gun, which is critical for the aircraft to provide close-air support to ground troops, isn’t expected to ship until 2019, according to the article.

As Majumdar writes:

“There will be no gun until [the Joint Strike Fighter’s Block] 3F [software], there is no software to support it now or for the next four-ish years,” said one Air Force official affiliated with the F-35 program. “Block 3F is slated for release in 2019, but who knows how much that will slip?”

What’s also interesting to note is how few rounds the General Dynamics Corp.-made weapon actually holds compared to the 1970s-era A-10 Thunderbolt II.

The GAU-22/A, a four-barrel version of the 25mm GAU-12/U Equalizer rotary cannon found on the Marine Corps’ AV-8B Harrier II jump set, is designed to be internally mounted on the Air Force’s F-35A version of the aircraft and hold 182 rounds. It’s slated to be externally mounted on the Marine Corps’ F-35B jump-jet variant and the Navy’s F-35C aircraft carrier version and hold 220 rounds.





The GAU-22/A is lighter and more accurate than its predecessor, but with a reduced rate of fire of 3,300 rounds per minute. At that rate, the F-35 would be out of ammunition in about four seconds, or one or two bursts of fire.

By comparison, the 30mm, seven-barrel GAU-8/A Avenger in the nose of the venerable Warthog attack aircraft can hold as many as 1,174 rounds. It’s configured to fire at a fixed rate of fire of 3,900 rounds per minute.




The F-35, in its full configuration with the Block 3F software, is designed to carry a suite of internal and external weapons, including the GPS-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition, laser-guided Paveway II bomb, Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile and infrared Sidewinder missile.

Still, the long wait for a functional F-35 gun is likely to raise more questions about the Air Force’s repeated push to send the A-10 to the bone yard. Lawmakers disagreed with the service’s fiscal 2015 budget proposal to retire the aircraft and authorized funding to keep the plane flying for at least another year.

Even war commanders seem sold on the merits of the A-10, which was deployed to Iraq in recent months to help U.S. and Iraqi forces fight Islamic militants. Video of the planes firing its iconic gun at suspected ISIS targets has circulated online.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon plans to begin operational flights of the F-35 — even without the use of the gun and lingering concerns over software — this year. The F-35B is slated to reach so-called initial operational capability by the end of the year, the F-35A by late next year and the F-35C by February 2019.



Pentagon never even planned the F-35’s gun to shoot until 2019

Published time: January 04, 2015 04:51


Reuters/Locheed Martin/Darin Russel

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Air Force, Army, Military, Navy, SciTech, Security

The problem with the gun system of the Pentagon’s most advanced F-35 jet, which won’t be able to shoot until at least 2019, is just a part of the disaster of ridiculously over-complex software, an aircraft designer Pierre Sprey told RT.

READ MORE: Missing software prevents US’ most advanced F-35 fighter jet from firing until 2019

RT: The F-35 fighter jet has been strongly criticized. Is that warranted do you think?

Pierre Sprey: The F-35 is in serious trouble, the latest is over the gun system. It is being reported that is due to a computer glitch – that is a severe understatement.

What it is really due to is two things: one, the disaster of ridiculously over-complex computer software system; and two, the fact that the gun itself is mainly for the purpose of close support and close in the air combat and the air force does not think that either of those are important.

In fact they think that close support is so unimportant that they are willing to cancel their present A-10 airplane. They'd like to wipe it out immediately, as soon as possible. And it is the best close air-support plane in the world. And they’ll promise that “well, later, sometime later the F-35 will replace it, we don't know quite exactly when.”

But the problem with the gun is real. And it is very much a part of the overall problem of the software disaster. The software is so complicated that the air force has planned it in five different blocks. And right now, they are simply flying the first block. And still having trouble with that one.

They are struggling to get the second block to work by the end of this for a kind of phony demonstration of the first operational squadron for the Marines. They may well not even be able to get the second block working.

The third block is supposed to come in 2016 for another phony demonstration of the first squadron of the Air Force.

And then the fourth block, which the first block that even provides for the gun, that even allows you to shoot the gun, is not due until 2019. And we won't know whether that block of software is working till the end of that year.



So for now, for the next four years, we have no possibility of shooting the gun, and it is the single most important weapon for close support and for close in-air combat. Needless to say the airplane is incapable of doing either one of them at all without the gun. And even after the gun works, if it does, which we don't know, the airplane will be hopelessly incapable of close support and probably worse at close-in dogfight than the 1960s MIG-21.

RT: There are three versions of the plane – do all of them have this computer glitch?

PS: Well, all of them have it. The only reason you are not hearing about the Navy problem with the software, is the Navy does not even have the gun. Two versions – the Air Force F-35A and the F-35B for the Marines have a gun – very important to both if they could do those missions.

But it is not that it is a glitch that has suddenly arrived and said, “Oh, we were going to have a gun, we won't have one till 2019” – they never even planned to have software to have the gun work until 2019.


AFP Photo/US Navy

And they are so far behind schedule, it is amazing. Since the beginning of the software engineering every year they've been losing six months of schedule. So they are supposed to advance a year – every year they lose six more months.

So when they promise 2019 for the fourth version of this software that might be able to shoot the gun, it is very likely that it will be another year or two later than that. This is a promise simply based on the current schedule which they’ve never held.

RT: Are the guns really that important? Is this a major drawback?

PS: The guns are absolutely essential for two reasons. In close support it is the single most important weapon because when your troops are in the most trouble, when they are about to be overrun by enemies that are 40, 30, 20 or even 10 meters away – there is no other weapon that works. If you tried to drop laser guided bomb in that situation you are as likely to kill your friends as the enemies.

Only the gun can be brought in that close to friendly troops to get them out of trouble. So in the deepest emergencies, the gun is the most important thing. But the air force has no interest in supporting troops. It has no interest in close support. So that is why they have scheduled the software that couldn’t even possibly shoot the gun so late in the program – because they are struggling with other enormous problems and they don't care for close support.

Whether this airplane does it or not – does not matter. They’ll just promise it will do it and let’s cancel the A-10 that does it today superbly. Let’s cancel that right away and we'll wait for a while, maybe the F 35 will work and maybe it won't.


Image from dtic.mil

RT: What impact will it have on the F-35 program? Now when it is known the jet will not be fully operational until at least 2019 – is there a chance that the Pentagon will abandon it altogether?

PS: Not unless there are some enormous embarrassment. So far they are spending as much effort on public relations to try to smooth the overall problems they’ve been having in actually engineering and designing the airplane. So unless there is some terrific series of crashes, I think, for the meanwhile, there is no chance that they will cancel the program.

I do predict that they will have that much trouble within the next few years, and that we will never see them build more than 500 of these airplanes. That the airplane will become technically such an embarrassment that they'll pretend they did not really need it anyhow, and that “it’s alright we have a better idea, we are working on a new airplane and forget about the F-35.”

That is exactly what they did with the F-111, which was equally a huge technical embarrassment and all the sudden the airplane wasn’t that necessary and instead of building 1,500 we only built 500. I think that is the scenario you will see for the F-35. Out of embarrassment in the next five years, they'll simply walk away from it.


Flashback:

[vector7]

How Russia’s S-400 makes the F-35 obsolete

March 11, 2015 Rakesh Krishnan Simha



The sale of the powerful S-400 surface-to-air missile systems to China not only marks another milestone in Russia-China relations, it is a remarkable example of how a comparatively inexpensive weapon can make a trillion dollar project obsolescent before it even gets off the ground.

It’s not often that a relatively inexpensive air defence weapon is able to make a trillion dollar fighter programme obsolete. But the $500 million S-400 missile system has done precisely that to America’s brand new F-35 stealth fighter.

In November 2014 Moscow and Beijing inked a $3 billion agreement for the supply of six battalions of S-400 anti-aircraft/anti-missile systems that will significantly boost China’s air defence capability against the US and its allies in the Western Pacific.

With a tracking range of 600 km and the ability to hit targets 400 km away at a blistering speed of 17,000 km an hour – faster than any existing aircraft–the S-400 is a truly scary weapon if you are facing its business end.First deployed by Russia in 2010, each S-400 battalion has eight launchers, a control centre, radar and 16 missiles available as reloads.

пустым не оставлять!!
S-400 air defence missile system defends the skies over Moscow

Unlike the overhyped US Patriot missile that turned out to be a dud in battle, the S-400 was designed to create the daddy of Iron Domes. “Given its extremely long range and effective electronic warfare capabilities, the S-400 is a game-changing system that challenges current military capabilities at the operational level of war,” Paul Giarra, president, Global Strategies and Transformation, told Defense News. The S-400 will have the “effect of turning a defensive system into an offensive system, and extend China’s A2/AD (anti-access/area-denial) umbrella over the territory of American allies and the high seas.”

But first a bit of background. The S-400 was developed to defend Russian air space and a few hundred kilometers further against missiles and aircraft of all types, including stealth. Because it is a highly potent and accurate weapon that can tip the balance of power in any war theatre, Moscow has long resisted the temptation of exporting even its older iteration, the S-300, to troubled allies Syria and Iran.

An S-300 missile fired from, say, Damascus will blow away an aircraft over central Tel Aviv in about 107 seconds, giving the Israelis just enough time to say their prayers. It is precisely because the S-series missile systems can so dramatically upset the military balance that Israel has pressured Russia against introducing it into the Middle East tinderbox. Israel has also warned it would go after Syrian S-300 batteries with everything it’s got.

However, China’s case is different because the chances of another country daring to take a shot at the Chinese are next to zero. This development is really bad news for the F-35.

Russia and the US have traditionally adopted different military strategies. During the Cold War the US relied upon carrier-based aircraft to project power in the Western Pacific, and the strategy continues today. The Russians on the other hand decided these floating airfields were easy targets for their shore-based long-range aviation and anti-ship cruise missiles.

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If it came to war, waves of long-range bombers such as the Tu-95M Backfire would take off from safe bases deep in continental Russia, fire their powerful cruise missiles from safe stand-offdistances and blast the carriers out of the water. The Russian pilots would then head home to watch the damage on CNN!

The Russian logic was elegantly simple. Back then the average nuclear powered aircraft carrier cost$1 billion whereas the average anti-ship cruise missile cost $1 million or less. For the money they’d have spent on a single carrier, the Russians figured they could build a thousand cruise missiles. Even if just a fraction of these missiles got through, all American carriers were dead in the water.

The Russians were so sure about the accuracy of their cruise missiles that the Backfirescarried only one Raduga Kh-22 (NATO name AS-4 Kitchen) missile armed with a nuclear warhead. According to weapons expert Bill Sweetman and Bill Gunston these missiles could be “programmed to enter the correct Pentagon window”.

China too is following the same trajectory. It has adopted the Russian Cold War strategy of attacking aircraft carriers with waves of bombers armed with its cruise missiles(that are knockoffs of Russian missiles). In fact, complete destruction of a carrier isn't necessary; even slight damage can put such large vessels out of commission for months. And since wars don’t last that long these days, the crippling of its carrier arm will force American capitulation early on in any conventional conflict.

To counter the missile threat to its carriers, the Americans are relying on the F-35 as a cruise missile killer. More than a trillion dollars have already been spent on this troubled project. Even if the F-35 is able to miraculously overcome its shortcomings, the S-400 upends this strategy.

пустым не оставлять!!
Strategic forces to use Yars ballistic missiles

Lockheed-Martin claims the F-35 has such advanced electronics that it can jam anything directed at it.But the S-400 won’t be easy to shake off. “It has many features specifically designed to overcome countermeasures and stealth, such as a larger, more powerful radar that is more resistant to jamming. It also actually has a set of three missiles of varying range that provide overlapping layers of defense," Ivan Oelrich, an independent defence analyst told The Diplomat.

There’s another way the S-400 degrades the F-35’s availability. Fourth generation aircraft such as the Su-30 and MiG-29 have aluminium bodies but stealth aircraft have composite bodies with special radar absorbing coating that requires several hours to apply. For each hour of flight, the F-35 requires 9-12 man hours of maintenance.

But that’s in normal flight. Wear and tear will be of a higher degree during evasive maneuvers that are inevitable if trying to shake off an S-400 radar lock (that's if the F-35 has enough time to react to the missile in the first place). Not only does the stealthy skin require new repair techniques, but extensive skin damage will necessitate repairs at Lockheed's land-based facilities. It is because of this reason that Eglin air force base in Florida has 17 mechanics per F-35.

Navy gets jitters

The F-35’s backers say the aircraft can emit frequencies, which can confuse and disable the S-400. But the US Navy's acquisition of 22 Growler jamming aircraft suggests the F-35’s jamming capability is not really all that it’s cracked up to be. According to Air Force Technology, there aresome figures in the US Navy and industry which say the F-35's stealth and EW capabilities are simply not enough.

“Pentagon officials are in an awkward position. If the Pentagon was to invest in more electronic warfare aircraft – such as the Growler – it would signal a lack of faith in the F-35's capability to penetrate enemy airspace. Equally, if it didn't invest in additional electronic warfare capabilities, the lives of F-35 pilots could be at risk with the proliferation of more advanced A2/AD weapons in countries such as China.”

пустым не оставлять!!
How Russian military technology is used abroad

These weapons the Pentagon is losing sleep over are clearly the S-300 and S-400.

According to Air Power Australia, “The S-300P/S-400 family of surface to air missile systems is without doubt the most capable SAM system in widespread use in the Asia Pacific region.”

“While the S-300P/S-400 series is often labelled ‘Russia's Patriot’, the system in many key respects is more capable than the US Patriot series, and in later variants offers mobility performance and thus survivability much better than that of the Patriot.”

Growing trust

The missile deal is a pointer to the increasing bonhomie between the political leaderships in Moscow and Beijing. The S-400 deal follows the clearance of the Su-35 fighter-bomber sale to China last year. Negotiations that had got bogged down for years because the Russian side wanted to protect their intellectual property were greenlighted after the West imposed sanctions.

The Russian concern was the Chinese would buy a few ‘samples’, take them apart, and then cancel the deal after deciding they could reverse engineer local versions. These knock-offs which would then be peddled cheap as chips overseas. In fact, the Chinese have traditionally reverse-engineered Russian weapons. Their J-15 jet fighter, for instance, is a copy of the Russian Sukhoi-33.

However, the complexity of the S-300 and Russian aircraft engines has proved to be the biggest constraint on Beijing’s copycat industry. This has reassured Moscow about proceeding with the sale of advanced weaponry. Plus, in 2008 and 2012 Russia made China sign stronger intellectual property protection agreements.

As of now Beijing will only receive four of these systems, but even this small number will be enough to create the daddy of Iron Domes over future battlefield theatres.

If you are an F-35 pilot, here’s a piece of advice: stay out of range.

The opinion of the writer may not necessarily reflect the position of RIR.

[Ryan Ruck]

Israel To Buy 14 F-35 Stealth Fighters From US

February 22, 2015

Israel is to purchase 14 F-35 stealth fighters from US aerospace giant Lockheed Martin at a cost of around $110 million each, the defence ministry said Sunday.

"The defence ministry will purchase an additional 14 F-35s for around $3 billion, each plane costing an average of $110 million," a ministry statement said.

The $2.82 billion deal, which includes other technological and training elements, was signed at the weekend after being approved by a ministerial committee in November.

It includes the purchase of 14 stealth fighters as well as the option to buy another 17. It is the continuation of an agreement signed in 2010 to purchase 19 F-35 planes.

The deal will see Israeli weapons and aviation systems integrated into the aircraft in a move which will inject tens of millions of shekels into the local economy, the ministry said.

The first batch of aircraft are expected to arrive in Israel by the end of 2016.

When the initial agreement was announced in 2010, the defence ministry said a key part of the deal was an agreement to allow Israeli industries to get involved in the assembly of the plane and the manufacture of spare parts.

[vector7]

First Version of F-35s Won't Outdo A-10 in Battlefield Capabilities

149 comments



Stars and Stripes | Apr 15, 2015 | by Travis J. Tritten

WASHINGTON -- Marine Corps pilots of the first F-35 joint strike fighters scheduled to begin flying this summer will not be able to use night vision technology or carry more than four bombs and missiles, Defense Department officials testified in the House on Tuesday.

Overall, the first variant aircraft will have a range of lingering shortcomings when it goes into operation and will not be able to best the capabilities of the 1970's era A-10 Thunderbolts it was designed to replace, according to Michael Gilmore, director of operational test and evaluation at the Defense Department.

The F-35 program began in 2001 and has since racked up nearly $400 billion in costs -- one of the most expensive and troubled Defense Department acquisition programs. It has also led to a controversial plan to retire the A-10, a close air support stalwart that many believe provides crucial cover for troops on the ground.

"If F-35 aircraft are employed at night for combat, pilots will have no night vision capability available due to the restriction on using the current night vision camera," Gilmore said in written testimony given to the House Armed Services Committee.

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The so-called Block 2B version that will go to the Marines in July can only loiter over the battlefield for up to 30 minutes and will only carry two short-range air-to-surface bombs of the same type and two medium-range air-to-air missiles, according to Gilmore.

Future versions for the other service branches are planned to include a wider variety of weapons but still face extensive testing. The F-35's loiter time is not likely to improve due to its engine and design.

The A-10 Thunderbolt, also known as the Warthog, can remain over the battlefield for 90 minutes, carry at least four air-to-surface weapons and use its powerful nose cannon for close air support of ground forces, Gilmore testified.

"This [F-35 variant] reminds me of something before the A-10, not something after the A-10," said Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., a freshman lawmaker and former Warthog pilot.

McSally said she was concerned about the lack of capabilities with the first F-35 variant, saying that weapons payload, loiter time over the battlefield, and the ability to take a hit from an enemy are key to the A-10 success.

Congress is now weighing the purchase of more F-35 Lightning II aircraft as part of the 2016 defense budget. The Government Accountability Office warned Tuesday that it may be a risky move due to the large amount of testing still needed to be completed to field future variants.

Many lawmakers are frustrated with the delays, cost overruns and technical problemsbut believe the 5th generation fighter jet is needed to retain American air superiority in the coming decades.

Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Calif., said some critics have called for the costly development project to be scrapped.

"However, we are past that decision point. We just need to make this program work," she said.

[MinutemanCO]

$400,000,000,000.00

Seriously? Something tells me a whole lotta less than integrity-filled individuals have gotten quite stinking rich off that contract.

[Ryan Ruck]

There is no way in HELL the F-35 will accomplish the low and slow CAS role that the A-10 does best at (Note: just forget about the anti-armor role it was originally designed for. In a modern combat environment against a peer, modern AA which the Russians have organic to their armor formations, will chew it to bits.).

Can you really see a relatively delicate piece of equipment like the F-35 dealing with something like this and flying home?

[American Patriot]

Folks, I was at White Sands the day the first real show was put on by these machines - quite by accident - passing through with some trucks from Oklahoma to a base out west to collect some equipment and haul it back to Oklahoma.

The military had closed off a pass we had to traverse and allowed us through because we were driving M35s.

We thought it was cool they let us pass.

Then when we rounded the bend and saw WHY, it was amazing.

A10 Warhogs were mean looking craft, seemingly slow-flying, dangerous cannons with wings. We watched them destroy tank after tank.

It was awesome.

Now, that was in about 1980, maybe 79 I don't really remember now.

That makes the planes about 35-36 years old.

We've got B52s that have been flying for 69 years.

We've got F16s that have been flying for 40+ years.

We've got C130s that have been flying for 61 years.

What is the problem here? An idiotic administration that thinks the BEST thing to do is to remove the best weapons systems ever invented from service.

[Ryan Ruck]

Navy Builds Ship For F-35, Ship Needs Months Of Upgrades To Handle F-35

April 13, 2015

The Navy’s USS America, the first of her class, was controversially optimized to handle the F-35, leaving out the multi-purpose well deck traditionally found on ‘Gator Navy’ flattops. Now, just months after her commissioning, she already needs 40 weeks of upgrades just to handle the very aircraft she was designed for.

The F-35 program has become something of a dark comedy. Yes, it has huge fiscal and national security implications, but sometimes you just have to laugh at how big of a fumbling mess it really is.

Not only has the jet itself been plagued by the absolutely shattered concept of ‘concurrency’ (building something en masse even before testing it), but as it turns out, some of its support infrastructure was too. This includes the 45,000 ton displacement USS America.

The $6.8 billion aircraft carrier ($3.4 billion unit cost) — and that is what it is, an aircraft carrier, not a amphibious assault ship — was commissioned last fall to great fanfare, yet now we learn it will be heading in to dry dock for almost a year.

Why, you ask? Is there a defect with the ship’s weapon systems? A propulsion or hull issue? Hardly, the class was actually based on the latest Wasp Class vessels, which in itself is troubling considering the America Class's much higher cost.

Instead it will receive myriad patchwork upgrades aimed at allowing it to operate the F-35B. Yep, you read that correctly, the same aircraft, along with the MV-22 Osprey, that the ship was specifically designed to accommodate, can't operate from its decks.

Not too astonishingly, the Navy and Big Defense, both of which seem to have a very loose grasp of the idea of budgets, play this off as an exciting thing, getting ready for the big game-changing F-35B. That is true, but almost another year in dry dock equates to big dollars and considering we already spent close to $7 billion on this design, of which only two ships will be made of it before returning back to the well deck concept, this seems outrageous.

Wouldn't it have been a better idea to just build these ships, if they truly are needed, after the F-35B was mature and its issues were known? How about instead just building another far less expensive Wasp Class vessel, which has a well deck, in its place? In fact, the Navy could have purchased a larger, much more capable and ideally suited vessel for the F-35B (ski jump included), a Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carrier and would have actually saved money!

So what does the Navy’s new F-35B carrier, the USS America, need to actually handle the F-35B? A pretty impressive laundry list of items, according to General Robert Walsh, the Navy's Director of Expeditionary Warfare, who was recently quoted by DoDbuzz.com:

"The ship's going through hull, mechanical and electrical mods for the F-35, including environmental mods. Some of it is deck related and some of it is lighting related. It lands on the deck differently than the Harrier"

Hmm. Well General Walsh, wouldn't those things been good to know before building the ship itself?

The flightdeck heating issue has been an embarrassing one for the F-35 program. Early on, it was assured that the heat from the F-35B's massive engine would not require any modifications for amphibious ship operations. Where the AV-8B Harrier could go, the F-35B could go.

This turned out to be a farce. The F-35B's hot exhaust has the capability to not just scorch these ships existing decks, they can melt right through them like a cutting torch, the purpose built USS America included. As a result, intricate structural members have to be added underneath spots seven and nine (F-35Bs will only be able to land on these two spots!) aboard the America, and a new deck surface coating must be added in hopes of keeping the jet's high heat signature at bay.

The heat modifications alone are a cause and effect proposition, as the extra structure added below the deck means that other components, some of them quite large, already installed there have to be moved deeper into the ship's bowels. This includes dropping lighting, ventilation, piping, wiring, mechanical systems and just about everything else you can imagine. Just like all the expensive patchwork retrofits that over 100 F-35s have required, the work on the America will be a costly and time consuming endeavor.

Then there are other issues, like the antennas, life rafts and other components that are located in the path of the F-35B's powerful and hot downwash. These all have to be relocated or hardened in order to not be destroyed by F-35 operations. This also leaves open the question, in an emergency or by a mistake, what happens if a F-35B lands on a different spot?

Maybe what is most startling is that not only is the ship that was designed for the F-35 not prepared structurally to operate that aircraft, but intellectually the ship is not prepared to deal with it either.

There are multiple quotes from higher-ups talking in wondrous, glowing prose about how the F-35 offers so much intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance information that they need to figure out a way for the ship to use that data. It's as if this is an exciting new problem, when in reality, it is astonishing that the America was not launched to leverage this capability from the outset. Instead, costly new systems will be built and major upgrades and retrofits will be needed. The spending never ends.

General Walsh describes this strangely unknown frontier of F-35 information exchange:

"Exciting but a real challenge... By fiscal year 2018 we'll have the first ever F-35s deployed... The integration council is really drilling down into what those requirements are... It's not going to be how we operated the Harrier. This is fifth generation… What's the requirement for the F-35 to be able to communicate and disseminate data across the battle force?

Peter Fanta, the Navy's Director of Surface Warfare, was quoted in National Defense Magazine as saying:

"We will not be able to bring that data (the F-35's) completely onboard in that first deployment.. We will learn where our holes are in our first deployment... Aircraft will talk to each other, will pass data back and forth to the ship, and we'll have to figure out how to do without driving the ship to its knees."

So even though the F-35 has been flying for almost a decade, its avionics testbed the CATbird flying long before that, and the fact that dozens of jets are serving in multiple non-test squadrons today at places like the USAF Weapons School, AND with the reality that the USMC is going to declare this aircraft operational in a few months, how doesn't the Navy know what tech it needs to exchange information with it?

Even worse, maybe they never really got to finding out how to share information with the ship at all, and now it is being played off like a grand adventure of some sort?

The F-35's data-link, known as Multi-function Advanced Data Link, is stealthy in nature as it uses low power, has low probability of intercept functions (jumping frequencies, quickly bursting data etc) and utilizes a series of antennas mounted all around the jet under the aircraft's skin to send data directly to other F-35s within line of sight.

These F-35s create an invisible 'daisy chain' of information flow, drastically increasing their situational awareness and tactical options. In contrast, Link 16/MIDS, an other forms of popular data links and waveforms are omni-directional, use more power and not necessarily low-probability of intercept (stealthy).

For aircraft carriers or large land forces that include F-35 operations, fusing MADL's information with Link 16 information will be done via connectivity node, such as a E-11 BACN, E-2D Hawkeye, E-3 Sentry or even an unmanned aircraft such as a EQ-4 Global Hawk. The problem with expeditionary warfare as part of a Gator Navy Expeditionary Strike Group is that they do not have an E-3D Hawkeye to fuse and relay beyond line-of-sight information like the Navy's super carriers do. That is unless they want to be tied to USAF or Naval Aviation assets, which would hamper their flexibility and independence.

As a result, either the USMC has to come up with some new unmanned aircraft that can pack a relay system and that can be launched off the deck of an LHD or LHA, or they need to outfit the Osprey with such a system. On the high-end this could be a Airborne Early Warning & Control variant of the V-22 itself, or at the very least, a modular roll-on, roll-off relay system that can be installed in any Osprey's hold.

I have identified these solutions and many others in great detail in this post, but the reality is that these should have been top priorities long ago so that the huge cost, both in dollars and in opportunity cost (all F-35 variants are handicapped by the inclusion of STOVL in the JSF design) that the F-35B represents, are offset by squeezing the most capability out of it and the Expeditionary Strike Groups it will be assigned to.

So why is all this now becoming an issue? How were these problems not addressed during the USS America's initial design and construction phrases? Frankly, I have no way to answer this, but considering that the USMC is actually trying to sell the fact that the F-35B will be operational later this year, yet won't embark on a cruise until 2018, is just another reason why not to drink their brand of Kool-Aid.

In the end, the USS America is another victim of the F-35's high risk concurrency procurement strategy, and quite honestly, it may be the biggest example of the whole debacle in both size and cost. Logic would dictate that developing key enabling technologies early on and waiting to test those technologies along with the new fighter aircraft they work with would be essential before putting any of them into production, let alone a $7 billion aircraft carrier.

Instead we're busy playing a very expensive catch-up game in reverse, to the point of building entire capital ships that cannot even exchange data with let alone operate the very fighter aircraft they were specifically designed for!

Maybe the saddest part of all of this is that the Navy named the F-35B's tailor-made ship the USS America. Then again, considering how seemingly mismanaged our country has become, this may actually be a fairly accurate title.

[Ryan Ruck]

This is what happens when Canada elects a new far left Prime Minister...

If this happens, other nations will have to take up Canada's slack or there will be problems with the F-35 program.

Canada Liberals To Start Fighter Competition Afresh

October 26, 2015

Canada's incoming Liberal government intends to completely restart the competition for fighter jets to replace its aging CF-18s, rather than relying on the proposals already made under the outgoing Conservatives, a Liberal source said on Monday.

He said the Liberals, who declared during their successful election campaign that they would not buy Lockheed Martin Corp's LMT.N F-35 stealth fighters, would put out a new "request for proposals," with a redesigned list of what the new planes will be required to do.

"We're going to put together the requirements we have for aircraft," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I don't think we trust the (Conservative) government's requirements."

The Liberals take power on Nov. 4, when the new ministers of defense and public works will be named.

Ruling out the F-35 left open the theoretical possibility of going ahead with the best of the remaining contenders on the basis of the bids already submitted, but the source made clear the new government would instead hit the reset button.

This means it could take years to make a choice. The source said he expected the decision would be made within the first term of Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau, which ends in October 2019.

A leading contender has always been considered to be Boeing Co's BA.N F/A-18E/F fighters, but they are expected to end production by 2019, possibly earlier, so Canada would need to move relatively fast if it wanted those.

Boeing and Lockheed lobbyists have often referred to the benefit of having planes used by the United States, for interoperability, but the Liberal source said different allied planes operate together without big problems.

Trudeau shook up the campaign and the aerospace industry with his Sept. 20 announcement that he would not buy F-35s. He said he expected this to yield savings, which he would apply to naval ships.

The other contenders in the Conservative government's competition were Dassault Aviation SA's AVMD.PA Rafale and the Eurofighter Typhoon - jointly made by BAE Systems PLC BAES.L, Finmeccanica SpA SIFI.MI and Airbus Group AIR.PA.

Trudeau had also named Saab AB's Gripen SAABb.ST as a potential contender, even though the Swedish firm had already effectively ruled itself out of the current competition.