F-35 looking more like white elephant

[frosti]

Nothing like breathless reporting of a long known and already fixed problem.

[North Shore]

WIRED, again. On the F22 this time, but with applicability to the -35
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12/f-22-real-cost/

[alctel]

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/12 ... r-13-flaws

I thought you meant this article here from wired!

Honestly I can't remember the last time I heard good news from the F-35 program, what a fantastically large waste of money (that isn't even suited for what we want out of a new fighter jet).

The most expensive weapons program in U.S. history is about to get a lot pricier.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, meant to replace nearly every tactical warplane in the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps, was already expected to cost $1 trillion dollars for development, production and maintenance over the next 50 years. Now that cost is expected to grow, owing to 13 different design flaws uncovered in the last two months by a hush-hush panel of five Pentagon experts. It could cost up to a billion dollars to fix the flaws on copies of the jet already in production, to say nothing of those yet to come.

In addition to costing more, the stealthy F-35 could take longer to complete testing. That could delay the stealthy jet’s combat debut to sometime after 2018 — seven years later than originally planned. And all this comes as the Pentagon braces for big cuts to its budget while trying to save cherished but costly programs like the Joint Strike Fighter.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s top weapons-buyer, convened the so-called “Quick Look Review” panel in October. Its report — 55 pages of dense technical jargon and intricate charts — was leaked this weekend. Kendall and company found a laundry list of flaws with the F-35, including a poorly placed tail hook, lagging sensors, a buggy electrical system and structural cracks.

Some of the problems — the electrical bugs, for instance — were becoming clear before the Quick Look Review; others are brand-new. The panelists describe them all in detail and, for the first time, connect them to the program’s underlying management problems. Most ominously, the report mentions — but does not describe — a “classified” deficiency. “Dollars to doughnuts it has something to do with stealth,” aviation guru Bill Sweetman wrote. In other words, the F-35 might not be as invisible to radar as prime contractor Lockheed Martin said it would be.


The JSF’s problems are exacerbated by a production plan that Vice Adm. David Venlet, the government program manager, admitted two weeks ago represents “a miscalculation.” Known as “concurrency,” the plan allows Lockheed to mass-produce jets — potentially hundreds of them — while testing is still underway. It’s a way of ensuring the military gets combat-ready jets as soon as possible, while also helping Lockheed to maximize its profits. That’s the theory, at least.

“Concurrency is present to some degree in virtually all DoD programs, though not to the extent that it is on the F-35,” the Quick Look panelists wrote. The Pentagon assumed it could get away with a high degree of concurrency owing to new computer simulations meant to take the guesswork out of testing. “The Department had a reasonable basis to be optimistic,” the panelists wrote.

But that optimism proved unfounded. “This assessment shows that the F-35 program has discovered and is continuing to discover issues at a rate more typical of early design experience on previous aircraft development programs,” the panelists explained. Testing uncovered problems the computers did not predict, resulting in 725 design changes while new jets were rolling off the factory floor in Fort Worth, Texas.

And every change takes time and costs money. To pay for the fixes, this year the Pentagon cut its F-35 order from 42 to 30. Next year’s order dropped from 35 to 30. “It’s basically sucked the wind out of our lungs with the burden, the financial burden,” Venlet said.

News of more costs and delays could not have come at a worse time for the Joint Strike Fighter. The program has already been restructured twice since 2010, each time getting stretched out and more expensive. In January, then-Secretary of Defense Robert Gates put the Marines’ overweight F-35B variant, which is designed to take off and land vertically, on probation. If Lockheed couldn’t fix the jump jet within two years, “it should be cancelled,” Gates advised.

Tasting blood in the water, Boeing — America’s other fighter-plane manufacturer — dusted off plans for improved F-15s and F-18s to sell to the Pentagon, should the F-35 fail. Deep cuts to the defense budget certainly aren’t helping the F-35′s case.

Humbled, Lockheed agreed to share some of the cost of design changes, instead of simply billing the government. The aerospace giant copped to its past problems with the F-35 and promised better performance. “There will not be another re-baseline of this program. We understand that,” Lockheed CEO Robert Stevens said in May.

But another “rebaselining,” or restructuring, is likely in the wake of the Quick Look Review. F-35 testing and production should be less concurrent and more “event-based,” the panelists advised. In other words, the program should worry less about meeting hard deadlines and more about getting the jet’s design right. It’ll be ready when it’s ready. Major production must wait, even if that means older warplanes — the planes the F-35 is supposed to replace — must stay on the front line longer.

Needless to say, that’s got some members of Congress up in arms. “It is at this exact moment that the excessive overlap between development and production that was originally structured into the JSF program … is now coming home to roost,” said Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican and the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “If things do not improve — quickly — taxpayers and the warfighter will insist that all options will be on the table. And they should be. We cannot continue on this path.”

[frosti]

Honestly I can't remember the last time I heard good news from the F-35 program,

That is because the MSM doesn't report on it. Good news doesn't sell.

Some good news:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/de ... d=blogDest

The aircraft has also been flown to 9.9g – which is 0.9g beyond the operational limits.

The aircraft “is meeting or exceeding the low observable requirements, so we know we have a stealthy aircraft which is fantastic.”

Canadian related:

Canada locked on to F-35 jet, no matter the cost: analysis

http://www.canada.com/news/canada-in-af ... story.html

[Big Pistons Forever]

Honestly I can't remember the last time I heard good news from the F-35 program,

That is because the MSM doesn't report on it. Good news doesn't sell.

Some good news:

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/de ... d=blogDest


Some less then good news, also from aviation week........

When the Joint Strike Fighter team told Guy Norris about the jet's first run to its Mach 1.6 design speed, a couple of minor facts slipped their minds. Nobody remembered that the jet had landed (from either that sortie or another run to Mach 1.6) with "peeling and bubbling" of coatings on the horizontal tails and damage to engine thermal panels. Or that the entire test force was subsequently limited to Mach 1.0.

But selective amnesia is not even one of five "major consequence" problems that have already surfaced with the JSF and are disclosed by a top-level Pentagon review obtained by Ares. Those issues affect flight safety, the basic cockpit design, the carrier suitability of the F-35C and other aspects of the program have been identified, and no fixes have been demonstrated yet. Three more "major consequence" problems are "likely" to emerge during tests, including high buffet loads and airframe fatigue.

Update: POGO has the full report here.

Experience from flight testing has eviscerated the argument that the F-35 program architects used to support high concurrency, with fat production contracts early in the test program: that modeling and simulation had advanced to the point where problems would be designed out of the hardware. In fact, the F-35 is having just as many problems as earlier programs, which means that there is no reason to expect that it will not continue to do so.

The "quick look review" (QLR) panel was chartered by acting Pentagon acquisition boss Frank Kendall on Oct. 28, eight days after top U.S. Air Force, Navy and U.K. Royal Air Force operational test force commanders jointly expressed their concern that the F-35 would not be ready to start initial operational testing in 2015, as envisaged in the delayed test program adopted in January.

Kendall was looking for an assessment of test progress, as well as a look at "concurrency risk" - the concern that problems discovered in testing will result in expensive modifications to aircraft that are produced before the fixes can be designed, tested and implemented in production.

The QLR was submitted on Nov. 29, before Navy Vice Adm. Dave Venlet, the JSF program director, disclosed some of the fatigue issues in interviews with AOLDefense. Its existence and some of its findings were reported by Bloomberg's Tony Capaccio early last week.

The most positive thing that the QLR has to say about the program is that the team "identified no fundamental design risks sufficient to preclude further production." That is, they don't say that the program should be terminated, or that production should be halted until problems are fixed. But the team concludes:

"The combined impact of these issues results in a lack of confidence in the design stability...this lack of confidence, in conjunction with the concurrency driven consequences of the required fixes, supports serious reconsideration of procurement and production planning...The QLR team recommends that further decisions about F-35 concurrent production be event-driven."

Since flight testing started to pick up speed in June 2010, 725 engineering change requests have been initiated, of which 148 are ready to incorporate. On average, it takes 18-24 months between the identification of a change and its implementation in production. JSF production orders started three to four years earlier than other fighters, and even under the current plan, close to 200 aircraft will be on order by the halfway point in flight testing.

Many of the issues described by the QLR have been reported, but not in detail. Others have been played down by the program. The following are four of the "big five" issues that have already surfaced. (The fifth is classified, but dollars to doughnuts it has something to do with stealth.)

We knew that the helmet-mounted display was in trouble. A simpler alternate HMD was ordered from BAE Systems in September, but it does not meet the requirement for "through the airplane" zero-light visibility provided by the electro-optical distributed aperture system. (Yes, that EO-DAS, that makes maneuvering irrelevant.)

Today, the killer problem with EO-DAS is latency: the image in the helmet lags 130 milliseconds behind sightline movement where the spec is under 40 ms. (So the video is where the pilot's head was pointed an eighth of a second ago.) That can't be fixed without changing the JSF's integrated core processor - the jet's central brain - and the EO-DAS sensors. Even the backup helmet faces buffet and latency issues, simply for symbology.

The underwing fuel dump system on the JSF doesn't get fuel clear of the aircraft surfaces, so that fuel accumulates in the flaperon and may get into the integrated power package (IPP) exhaust. That creates a fire hazard, particularly on a ship deck after landing. Fuel dumping has been banned except in an emergency. Two unsuccessful modifications have been tried on the F-35B.

The IPP - the cause of a grounding this summer, after a "catastrophic failure" caused IPP parts to puncture a fuel tank - is turning out to be unreliable. It's supposed to last 2,200 hours, but so far in the flight test program, 16 IPPs have been removed and replaced - a process that takes two days of 24-hour work.

The arrester hook issue has been reported. In the first round of tests, the hook failed to catch the wire once. The QLR notes that tests of a minimal modification - a reprofiled hook with different damper settings - set for April "represent only the initial stages leading into full carrier suitability demonstrations."

Studies are already underway of changing the hook's location - the basic problem is that the designers put the hook closer behind the main landing gear than that of any current or recent Navy aircraft, even the tailless X-47B - but that will have "major, direct primary and secondary structural impacts".

The QLR report predicts more problems, based on experience so far, historical data, and the collapse of the "test is validation" orthodoxy.

F-35 flight tests have not gone beyond 20 degrees angle of attack, and higher-than-predicted buffet loads have been experienced. So far, severity has been similar to current aircraft but it is experienced over a large part of the envelope. Exploration of the high-AoA envelope does not start until the fall of 2012 and full results will not be available until 2014. Excess buffet can accelerate airframe fatigue, and induces jitter in the HMD.

One editorial observation, not from the report: aerodynamic issues are a challenge on a stealth aircraft because some of the standard fixes - fences, strakes and vortex trippers, for instance - can't be used.

Other risks are individually less severe but cumulatively could result in substantial modifications. They include thermal issues - like the current speed restriction - and an untested lightning protection system, which at least until late 2012 means that the aircraft is not allowed within 25 nm of predicted lightning. (That is expected to cancel 25-50% of training events at Eglin AFB.) Weight margins for all versions are paper-thin.

The full QLR is densely packed and makes fascinating reading. Personal view? What keeps going through my mind is Gus McCrae from Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, after one of the Hat Creek outfit has ridden into a nest of water moccasins:

"Eight sets of bites, not countin' the legs. Ain't no point in countin' the legs."
Comments (120) | Permanent Link

[2R]

Maybe they will get all the problems fixed before the next edition of the worlds worst aircraft goes to publication.
ISBN-978-1-84013-959-4
It features over 150 of the worst aircraft ever to leave the drawing board,from the Seddon mayfly,which did not fly,to a fling tank which suprisingly did

[frosti]

blah blah

Given the in depth coverage of this fighter, I think alot of people are going OMG ITS A DISASTER! without understanding that #1 this is not exceptional, #2 the program is 1/5th of the way through its development process when you're probably going to see the most issues crop up. People who are most concerned about the structural issue should re-read this line.

Although major failures have occurred early in fatigue testing, they are not remarkable when viewed against the background of other tactical aircraft programs. They appear to be individual engineering failures of the kind routinely discovered in fatigue testing.

If we were to cancel the F-35 program today and start again with another jet fighter we would just end up back in the same place with a different manufacter and a different jet fighter. A little perspective for those of you who might not know. At the link below, GAO Report on F/A-18 E/F EMD Progress from 1999. "Super" Hornet came out of OT-IIB with 29 Major Deficiencies. They went into OPEVAL with 84 deficiencies, 71 of which were not corrected until after OPEVAL. The correction of many of these discrepancies, including structural fixes at 2000, 4000 and 6000 hours continues even today, 12 years later. And many are beating up F-35 for how many issues in the QLR?? Get a grip on yourselves.

http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/ns99127.pdf

[Big Pistons Forever]

blah blah

Given the in depth coverage of this fighter, I think alot of people are going OMG ITS A DISASTER! without understanding that #1 this is not exceptional, #2 the program is 1/5th of the way through its development process when you're probably going to see the most issues crop up. People who are most concerned about the structural issue should re-read this line.

Although major failures have occurred early in fatigue testing, they are not remarkable when viewed against the background of other tactical aircraft programs. They appear to be individual engineering failures of the kind routinely discovered in fatigue testing.

If we were to cancel the F-35 program today and start again with another jet fighter we would just end up back in the same place with a different manufacter and a different jet fighter. A little perspective for those of you who might not know. At the link below, GAO Report on F/A-18 E/F EMD Progress from 1999. "Super" Hornet came out of OT-IIB with 29 Major Deficiencies. They went into OPEVAL with 84 deficiencies, 71 of which were not corrected until after OPEVAL. The correction of many of these discrepancies, including structural fixes at 2000, 4000 and 6000 hours continues even today, 12 years later. And many are beating up F-35 for how many issues in the QLR?? Get a grip on yourselves.

http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/ns99127.pdf

Or we could just buy the already debugged F18E which comes with a proven track record and cost certainty.......

[teacher]

Or we could just buy the already debugged F18E which comes with a proven track record and cost certainty.......

And in 2025 when the rest of the world retires their Super Hornets for more advanced aircraft what do we do? Keep another outdated typre for another 25 years? This is a clean sheet design and problems will occur, A350 and B787 ring any bells? How about every other clean sheet aircraft ever built?

The age of the internet has given people too much information that can be twisted into incorrect "facts"

[Expat]

People who have worked in acquisition program management know better. They know that:

Program staff have vested interest in speaking positively about the program, always. Their job depends on it.
They become very friendly with the contractor's staff, as they work and socialize together. They will not talk against them. Ever.
If they were to talk about the enormities they come across, the senior management at the contractor would talk to the senior program managers, and get them fired quickly. Always.

So how do you get the truth out?
Very difficult. Every one there has vested interest in minimizing talks about design flaws, or failures. Because these guys are the only real expert, no one dares oppose their judgement, or their positions.

The only way to kill such a program, is politically, when cuts become inevitable, and when the probram becomes impopular politically.

And this would not be the first such program dumped.

[trampbike]

I can't wait to see what the media will do when Japan confirms it will buy many F-35 (and therefore reducing the production costs)

[reality check]

I can't wait to see what the media will do when Japan confirms it will buy many F-35 (and therefore reducing the production costs)

Yes, I'm sure they'll be all over that when they finish paying for the earthquake, the meltdown, and the recovery of their slumped economy. Frosti, do you work for Lockheed, or do you just carry the pom-poms on behalf og the Cndn Military?

This thing is not only a lemon, like many weapons systems before it, it's a trillion $ one. Sign me up. In fact, I'm not sure how we're managing all the current threats without it????????? HURRY!!!!!

[Big Pistons Forever]

Or we could just buy the already debugged F18E which comes with a proven track record and cost certainty.......

And in 2025 when the rest of the world retires their Super Hornets for more advanced aircraft what do we do?

Here is a "fact" for you. The US Navy plans to keep the Super Hornet in service untill 2040. By that time who knows where the technology will be but I am willing to bet that early 2000's "stealth" aircraft, like the F35 will probably be easy to defeat. What nobody wants to talk about is that the day of the manned fighter jet is fast drawing to a close........

[North Shore]

Pistons does bring up an interesting point. If the whole idea behind the push for 5th generation fighters is increased lethality for one's opponents, and decreased casualties for one's allies, then why not go whole hog, and go to unmanned fighters? The engineers can do all sorts of aerodynamic tricks, completely unhindered by human G limitations, and as your operators are safe and sound in the USA, casualties would be reduced?

Or, being a civilian, am I missing something?

[Spokes]

Pistons does bring up an interesting point. If the whole idea behind the push for 5th generation fighters is increased lethality for one's opponents, and decreased casualties for one's allies, then why not go whole hog, and go to unmanned fighters? The engineers can do all sorts of aerodynamic tricks, completely unhindered by human G limitations, and as your operators are safe and sound in the USA, casualties would be reduced?

Or, being a civilian, am I missing something?

I think someday, and not too far in the future it will possible. One hangup that could cause problems is having enough bandwidth to transmit commands to that many aircraft. It already is a problem with the relatively few unmanned spy planes in use here at the moment. (relatively compared to the number of other aircraft in use). of course there may be some ways to use addressing an encryption to make it all work.

I also think that command guided fighter aircraft would be extremely susceptible to data link jamming. That also may be a problem. With that in mind, very complex programming would be required to ensure that these aircraft could continue to operate in a jamming environment without control

Of course that brings up the other big issue. Even if you could program fighter aircraft to operate on their own if data links are jammed, would you want to. I don't think this will be the start of Judgement day, but I am not sure anyone wants armed aircraft operating in combat on their own- or even able to.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Pistons does bring up an interesting point. If the whole idea behind the push for 5th generation fighters is increased lethality for one's opponents, and decreased casualties for one's allies, then why not go whole hog, and go to unmanned fighters? The engineers can do all sorts of aerodynamic tricks, completely unhindered by human G limitations, and as your operators are safe and sound in the USA, casualties would be reduced?

Or, being a civilian, am I missing something?

I think someday, and not too far in the future it will possible. One hangup that could cause problems is having enough bandwidth to transmit commands to that many aircraft. It already is a problem with the relatively few unmanned spy planes in use here at the moment. (relatively compared to the number of other aircraft in use). of course there may be some ways to use addressing an encryption to make it all work.

I also think that command guided fighter aircraft would be extremely susceptible to data link jamming. That also may be a problem. With that in mind, very complex programming would be required to ensure that these aircraft could continue to operate in a jamming environment without control

Of course that brings up the other big issue. Even if you could program fighter aircraft to operate on their own if data links are jammed, would you want to. I don't think this will be the start of Judgement day, but I am not sure anyone wants armed aircraft operating in combat on their own- or even able to.

True and there are serious ethical and more issues with kinetic effects delivered without any, and I hate to be crass here, skin in the game. But the future is here already. How many Hellfire and Maverick missiles that have been fired by a guy sitting in an office chair at Creech AFB in Nevada have resulted in dead people on the other side of the earth ? Hard numbers are difficult to come by but the number is substantial. Only 10 years ago every one of those would have delivered by a manned aircraft flying into danger. Even Lockheed has said that the F 35 is likely to be the last manned fighter project.

But the bottom line is simple. What is the threat that Canada faces where a gen 4.5 fighter like the Super Hornet isn't going to be good enough ?

[Spokes]

In the case you describe, there is still a human in the loop, even though he/she is in a control room somewhere not on the airplane. I am talking about a case where your unmanned fighter has its data link jammed, and is not receiving command. In this case it would be necessary for the aircraft to operate automanously (sp?) to carry on the fight.

If a lone spy plane has its link jammed, it can simply be programmed to fly home. I'm not sure you would want your front line fighter planes too all suddenly turn for home.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The technological progression is manned to remotely piloted unmanned to autonomous unmanned. We are a long way from autonomous unmanned but anybody who doesn't think the manned fighter is a concept that will become increasingly obsolescent is IMHO, deluded. The Air Force crowd talking up the idea that the F35 is the only possible solution are starting to sound like the Battleship Admirals of the late 1920's who rubbished the ideas of progressive officers who were saying that the future of the Navy was in Aircraft Carriers, not their precious capital ships.

But the new age is not here yet, so what to do in the meantime since the current CF18 fleet won't last until the new unmanned technology is available?

It seems the choice is write a blank cheque for the F 35 or buy the F18E at a fixed price and use it as bridge to a future air tactical effects vehicle. With a limited and shrinking amount of available defense dollars I Know what makes sense to me.

[Spokes]

I have concerns about the F35 as well, but In the case for the F18E, I am not so sure buying 20 year old aircraft is the best choice. Some say it is ok, because the nature of current conflicts do not require the most high tech type equipment. That is today however, It is impossible to know where we will send our kids to fight in the next 10-20-30 years.

I do not know what the best answer is however.

[Beefitarian]

What nobody wants to talk about is that the day of the manned fighter jet is fast drawing to a close........

Some do.

The day of the manned fighter jet is fast drawing to a close.