The F-35 is not dead

[55+]

You'd either A: have to be naive not to support it or B: have a personal bias against the F-35 for whatever reason.

How about C: unwilling to support a multibillion dollar, multi-year procurement program based solely on DND's say-so, without a careful and public review of the alternatives.
Refusing to drink your koolaid makes me neither naive nor biased, so enough with the name-calling and the snotty attitude already.

+1

[Instructor_Mike]

]How about C: unwilling to support a multibillion dollar, multi-year procurement program based solely on DND's say-so, without a careful and public review of the alternatives.
Refusing to drink your koolaid makes me neither naive nor biased, so enough with the name-calling and the snotty attitude already.

+1

+1

[frosti]

One of the reasons why I'm a big supporter of the F-35 is not just the tech, which is decades ahead of older gen aircraft, but the acquisition price.

What really fascinates me is that you know the acquisition price of the F-35 when nobody else - including the US government - does. I mean besides the fact that it's already spiraled into the most expensive fighter aircraft program in history and has five years more to go in development. Everybody knows that. How do you do it?

The KPMG report puts the F35 at $88m in 2017, so unless you chose not to believe them, a supposedly unbiased source, I suggest you find your own source that has higher costs to support your view. The US needs to replace their ageing fighter fleet, its not rocket science. There is only one aircraft right now that will be the future of the USAF, USN and USMC and that is the F35. They plan to acquire hundreds if not thousands of the things not to mention the international orders. So what happens you build the same thing over and over again in large scale production? The costs go down. Aircraft are already rolling off the assembly line as we speak and production will only increase. Boeing is late to the game and they know it, they are already looking into designs for "6th gen" aircraft to replace the F-22.

How about C: unwilling to support a multibillion dollar, multi-year procurement program based solely on DND's say-so, without a careful and public review of the alternatives.

Oh give it a rest. The costs have never changed substantially enough to allow all this whining and complaining from the media. It was always going to be $1b a year to operate the F35 or whatever else we buy. The costs have risen artificially because everyone uses different time periods for calculation. Every week someone increases those dates by 5-10 years just so they can sell their toilet paper. Read between the lines and do some research beyond what the CBC feeds you. Why bother right? You already made up your mind much like the posters in this thread, facts be damned.

[Rockie]

The KPMG report puts the F35 at $88m in 2017, so unless you chose not to believe them, a supposedly unbiased source, I suggest you find your own source that has higher costs to support your view.

KPMG's cost estimates are based on figures valid at the time of the audit, but you'll note that the cost has been steadily rising throughout the life of the F-35's development program that lasts another 4-5 years and shows no sign of stopping. Their figures are already out of date. Their estimates are also based on several thousand of them being built which also won't happen.

The costs have never changed substantially enough to allow all this whining and complaining from the media.

Why don't you give it a rest? The unit flyaway cost has done nothing but rise substantially since the beginning. And that "whining and complaining" is called informing the public of the facts as they escape the government's secretive grip. "Free press" is one of the democratic principles you're supposed to be defending...or have you forgotten?

[Diadem]

KPMG's cost estimates are based on figures valid at the time of the audit, but you'll note that the cost has been steadily rising throughout the life of the F-35's development program that lasts another 4-5 years and shows no sign of stopping. Their figures are already out of date. Their estimates are also based on several thousand of them being built which also won't happen.

I'm curious to know where you're getting the 4-5 year timeline; this isn't a dig, I just honestly can't find a lot of info on when testing is expected to be completed. All I've been able to find is that the plan is to complete testing in 2016, even while making the first delivery in 2015, which is only two years away, and that the final stages of testing won't be nearly as intensive as the next year or two.
What's the basis of your claim that there won't be several thousand F-35s built? The US alone is planning to buy 2400, and the total orders are about 3100; even if every country besides the US backs out, or if the US cut their orders by 17%, or both, there would still be at least 2000 built. Yet, there is no indication that such huge quantities of orders would be outright cancelled; they may be reduced, but thousands will still be produced. You have no evidence to indicate that the orders are actually going to be cancelled, so you're just pulling that out of your ass. I could say that the program will be saved by Russia ordering 10000 airframes, which would be just as valid as your assertion, since it has no truth behind it. There is no aircraft in the pipeline which could be brought in to replace the F-35 if it's cancelled, which means the US has three options: operate their current fleet well beyond the current expected service life until another, newer fighter has been designed, tested, built and put into service in 15 or 20 years; get rid of all their current aircraft and not replace them; or continue with the F-35 and eat any additional costs which may arise. Which of these scenarios do you think is most likely to happen?
Your statement about KPMG's cost estimate is utterly false. I read through the entire report, and they state explicitly that the upper range of unit acquisition costs could be as much as 30% higher than current estimates, in the absolute worst-case scenario of just about everyone cancelling their orders. Historical cost trends will not necessarily hold true into the future, and your assertions are based on, well, your personal opinion, so if you have some super-secret info about the costs rising out of control you should probably send it to KPMG. This is a quote from a summary of KPMG's report: "KPMG did not identify any significant quantifiable differences in the current estimates provided by National Defence for the Next Generation Fighter Capability program." All the naysayers who believe the costs will be exponentially larger than the government claimed are, simply put, making things up without any facts to back up their statements.

[Rockie]

I'm curious to know where you're getting the 4-5 year timeline; this isn't a dig, I just honestly can't find a lot of info on when testing is expected to be completed.

You half said it yourself, first production delivery in late 2015 but final development not complete until 2018.

What's the basis of your claim that there won't be several thousand F-35s built? The US alone is planning to buy 2400, and the total orders are about 3100; even if every country besides the US backs out, or if the US cut their orders by 17%, or both, there would still be at least 2000 built.

Canada already reduced their order from 80 to 65. Other countries have or are contemplating the same. And in case you haven't been paying attention to the overall economic situation the United States is broke. 2400 airframes for them is a pipedream from the beginning of the program. Reduced numbers mean higher unit flyaway cost. Read the first sentence of this paragraph again. Canada reduced their order in an attempt to keep the total cost in line with original estimates.

Your statement about KPMG's cost estimate is utterly false. I read through the entire report, and they state explicitly that the upper range of unit acquisition costs could be as much as 30% higher than current estimates, in the absolute worst-case scenario of just about everyone cancelling their orders. Historical cost trends will not necessarily hold true into the future,

Really? If the unit flyaway cost has risen in a steep curve throughout the program only a raving optimist would expect it to stop. KPMG specifically states their estimates are based on 3100 aircraft. That is not likely to happen which will change KPMG's cost estimates.

All the naysayers who believe the costs will be exponentially larger than the government claimed are, simply put, making things up without any facts to back up their statements.

I don't know anybody saying they will be exponentially higher, just higher. That opinion is based on well documented increasing flyaway costs, actual cost trends, increasing panic in the US government about the whole program and the exposing of the government's numbers to date as a complete fallacy. Somewhere along the way the beleaguered taxpayer has to be given the truth in this whole mess.

[Diadem]

You half said it yourself, first production delivery in late 2015 but final development not complete until 2018...Canada already reduced their order from 80 to 65. Other countries have or are contemplating the same. And in case you haven't been paying attention to the overall economic situation the United States is broke. 2400 airframes for them is a pipedream from the beginning of the program. Reduced numbers mean higher unit flyaway cost. Read the first sentence of this paragraph again. Canada reduced their order in an attempt to keep the total cost in line with original estimates...Really? If the unit flyaway cost has risen in a steep curve throughout the program only a raving optimist would expect it to stop. KPMG specifically states their estimates are based on 3100 aircraft. That is not likely to happen which will change KPMG's cost estimates...I don't know anybody saying they will be exponentially higher, just higher. That opinion is based on well documented increasing flyaway costs, actual cost trends, increasing panic in the US government about the whole program and the exposing of the government's numbers to date as a complete fallacy. Somewhere along the way the beleaguered taxpayer has to be given the truth in this whole mess.

Again, where are you getting 2018? All I've found is 2016. The cost of those years of testing has been included in the cost of the program; it could take longer than that and cost more, but it could also take less time and cost less. In 2012, several components of the testing program moved faster than expected and more was completed in those components than anticipated. Unless you have proof that it will take longer and there will be cost overruns, then it's just your personal speculation and not based on anything.
Again, the US (nor any other country for the matter) hasn't actually cancelled any orders, so the assumption that it's going to happen is based on your own desire to see the program fail. If and when the orders are cut, then we can take a third or fourth look at the anticipated costs at that time, but right now it's also just your speculation. We could base all of our cost estimates on the assumption that all of the orders except Canada's 65 will be cancelled if we really want to see how high the costs will go, but I don't see much point in doing that unless it actually happens. As it stands, right now, with the actual order sheet, the cost of the F-35 is not particularly onerous in comparison to other fighters which are on the market.
Your comment about the "exposing of the government's numbers to date as a complete fallacy" makes me wonder whether you're so in denial that you can't actually come to terms with the fact that the government's cost estimate was accurate. I mean, I posted this in my last comment: "KPMG did not identify any significant quantifiable differences in the current estimates provided by National Defence for the Next Generation Fighter Capability program." This is the exact opposite of what you said; your comment is completely and entirely wrong. KPMG is a third party with no stakes in the outcome of the decision which was asked to impartially assess whether the DND's estimates were accurate, and they assessed that yes, in reality, what the government said was true. Let me quote that again, in bold, because you seemed to have trouble reading it the last time: "KPMG did not identify any significant quantifiable differences in the current estimates provided by National Defence for the Next Generation Fighter Capability program." So, did you miss this, or are so you utterly opposed to the F-35 that you refuse to accept things like "facts" and "evidence" when they don't conform to your preconceptions?

[frosti]

Edited for racial slurs. You should know better than that.
Bandaid.

[Rockie]

Diadem

The KPMG audit is based on assumptions of scale that are not in any way certain. Even then it was the straw that broke the camel's back and finally forced the government into a proper evaluation of all options, something they had not done to that point. Why do you think that is? The AG's report contains a very illustrative graph showing the straight line year over year increase in unit flyaway cost. The federal government has already reduced the numbers from 80 to 65 solely due to increasing cost, and have not included the costs for replacement aircraft over its lifetime. The picture continues to get uglier and uglier as time goes on.

While you will likely dismiss this as hearsay or rumour, wikipedia has a very good write up on the history of this program and they make many statements that can no doubt be confirmed with some digging. You're welcome to do so if you like, but for me there is enough corroborating articles from too many sources over too long a period of time that it's good enough for me. Here's a link in case you're interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_M ... rocurement


Frosti

You might first want to rethink that intolerant rant of yours. Second you might open a newspaper or two and realize it isn't just the CBC reporting on the F-35 fiasco. Everybody is.

[YYZSaabGuy]

Your post was edited as it quoted another post that I removed due to racial undertones. Your post was for no other reason edited and please feel free to repost without the reference to the one removed. Sorry if this caused any confusion.
Bandaid

[YYZSaabGuy]

Sorry the post you refered to has been removed due to racial slurs. It's not that your contribution is not of merit it's that the other one wasn't.

OK, too bad, because my previous post was a real barn-burner, but let me try again.

I'm not sure there's a lot left on here to argue about: Rockie has pointed out (correctly) that the flyaway cost is not yet fixed and therefore is unknowable, so I'm not sure why that point is even up for discussion. The operating costs, from the information that's in the public domain, do seem to be pretty much on a par with competing platforms. The only reasonable thing to do is what's being done, and that's conduct an impartial review of the available options and make a decision.

That said, the F35 program continues to have its problems. From a FlightGlobal article released about three hours ago - see http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... ct-381683/ - the recent US DoD decision to relax certain performance specs (because the F35 couldn't meet them) is going to have some consequences. From the article (emphasis mine):

"The Pentagon's decision to reduce the performance specifications for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will have a significant operational impact, a number of highly experienced fighter pilots consulted by Flightglobal concur. But the careful development of tactics and disciplined employment of the jet may be able to mitigate some of those shortcomings.

"This is going to have a big tactical impact," one highly experienced officer says. "Anytime you have to lower performance standards, the capability of what the airframe can do goes down as well."

The US Department of Defense's decision to relax the sustained turn performance of all three variants of the F-35 was revealed earlier this month in the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation 2012 report. Turn performance for the US Air Force's F-35A was reduced from 5.3 sustained g's to 4.6 sustained g's. The F-35B had its sustained g's cut from five to 4.5 g's, while the US Navy variant had its turn performance truncated from 5.1 to five sustained g's. Acceleration times from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.2 were extended by eight seconds, 16 seconds and 43 seconds for the A, B and C-models respectively. The baseline standard used for the comparison was a clean Lockheed F-16 Block 50 with two wingtip Raytheon AIM-120 AMRAAMs. "What an embarrassment, and there will be obvious tactical implications. Having a maximum sustained turn performance of less than 5g is the equivalent of an [McDonnell Douglas] F-4 or an [Northrop] F-5," another highly experienced fighter pilot says. "[It's] certainly not anywhere near the performance of most fourth and fifth-generation aircraft."

At higher altitudes, the reduced performance will directly impact survivability against advanced Russian-designed "double-digit" surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems such as the Almaz-Antey S-300PMU2 (also called the SA-20 Gargoyle by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization), the pilot says. At lower altitudes, where fighters might operate in for the close air support or forward air control role, the reduced airframe performance will place pilots at increased risk against shorter-range SAMs and anti-aircraft artillery.

Most egregious is the F-35C-model's drastically reduced transonic acceleration capabilities. "That [43 seconds] is a massive amount of time, and assuming you are in afterburner for acceleration, it's going to cost you even more gas," the pilot says. "This will directly impact tactical execution, and not in a good way.""

A cynic might question why it makes sense to pay 5th generation pricing for an aircraft which doesn't achieve the performance of a 4th generation aircraft designed in the 1950s. This of course is where Frosti will point out that the FlightGlobal columnists are merely puppets of those evil pricks at the CBC, so take the above with the requisite grain of salt.

[frosti]

Second you might open a newspaper or two and realize it isn't just the CBC reporting on the F-35 fiasco. Everybody is.

You are right there, everyone is spewing the same, uneducated garbage to the mass Canadian public who is unaware of the crap they are being fed.

While everyone bickers uncontrollably, more F-35's are rolling off the line......

100th F-35 On Lockheed Martin’s Production Line

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/news/p ... ction.html

A cynic might question why it makes sense to pay 5th generation pricing for an aircraft which doesn't achieve the performance of a 4th generation aircraft designed in the 1950s. This of course is where Frosti will point out that the FlightGlobal columnists are merely puppets of those evil pricks at the CBC, so take the above with the requisite grain of salt.

What load configuration is the aircraft in, and what altitude this is at, what speed it's at, the angle of attack etc?. By themselves, these numbers don't mean much, so don't get excited. There is no single "sustained turn rate" or sustained g for an airplane. Every speed, altitude, gross weight, power setting, and store load has a different sustained g level. Until the specific conditions are listed, there is no way to compare sustained g levels. The F-16 can sustain 9g under some conditions. Under other conditions, it can sustain less than 5g. So the numbers presented for the F-35 mean absolutely nothing without the conditions being stated.

[YYZSaabGuy]

What load configuration is the aircraft in, and what altitude this is at, what speed it's at, the angle of attack etc?. By themselves, these numbers don't mean much, so don't get excited. There is no single "sustained turn rate" or sustained g for an airplane. Every speed, altitude, gross weight, power setting, and store load has a different sustained g level. Until the specific conditions are listed, there is no way to compare sustained g levels. The F-16 can sustain 9g under some conditions. Under other conditions, it can sustain less than 5g. So the numbers presented for the F-35 mean absolutely nothing without the conditions being stated.

I think the point, which for some reason you're choosing to ignore, is that the US DoD was forced to relax the sustained turn performance specs for all three variants. That by itself would indicate there's a performance problem at enough critical load configurations, altitudes, speeds, AofA, etc. that something had to be done. If the problems could be fixed via an engineering solution, they would've been fixed rather than relaxing compliance with bid specs. The impact, as discussed in the article, is that F-35 tactics are going to have to be changed to rely more on stealth and beyond visual range combat, and there's going to be a need to push out engagement zones to mitigate the now-greater SAM risk. In other words, the aircraft isn't going to be as capable as it was originally portrayed.

And for the record, I wasn't getting excited, just bringing some facts into the discussion. Care to give that a try yourself?

[Rockie]

You are right there, everyone is spewing the same, uneducated garbage to the mass Canadian public who is unaware of the crap they are being fed.

This is a small measure of progress I guess in that you may have eased off your "CBC conspiracy theory" a bit. May I suggest Frosti that you are too close to the issue and might be fixated on a tree while the rest of the forest burns down?

[YYZSaabGuy]

Interesting story this morning here http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/201 ... ntino.html about the problems with potential counterfeit Chinese parts in the recent Hercules procurement, and about DND's repeated failure to disclose the issue. An excerpt:

"Officials at National Defence headquarters in Ottawa have now admitted to CBC News that the department had known at least four months before Fantino's interview that the same counterfeit parts were also in Canada's brand new Hercules planes. No one at the time, apparently, shared that information with the minister, even when Fantino's office asked DND officials point-blank if Canada had fake parts in its planes. Fantino is only the latest in a long history of defence ministers hung out to dry by their own department, many of them hapless victims of a military culture in which political bosses are sometimes viewed as a passing nuisance to be circumvented as much as possible. In this case, it is possible that an internal failure to communicate left Fantino in the dark, a classic snafu of one hand of DND not knowing what the other was doing. If so, it may explain how DND has created such huge problems for itself with almost every big procurement — planes, helicopters, ships, armoured vehicles — over the past six years. But there is also evidence Fantino may have been left misinformed in a bureaucratic attempt to cover up yet another embarrassment for a department already beset with billions of dollars of equipment boondoggles."

This is why some of us take DND's claims about the F-35 procurement with a huge grain of salt, and why we support the procurement re-set and the decision to examine other airframes for suitability as F-35 substitutes.

Of course, for certain individuals on this forum, the above will be yet another example of disinformation spread by those evil pricks at the CBC, so.....there's that.

[Rockie]

"Officials at National Defence headquarters in Ottawa have now admitted to CBC News that the department had known at least four months before Fantino's interview that the same counterfeit parts were also in Canada's brand new Hercules planes.

What's far worse in my mind is the government saying when this story broke that they were leaving the counterfeit parts in the aircraft because "there hasn't been a problem with them yet".

I do not believe the DND keeping the government in the dark is the whole story either. Our current Prime Minister is the most extreme, ruthlessly vicious control freak who ever occupied that office and there are too many obvious examples of what happens to non-political civil servants who go against the party line to dispute that fact. Conservative politicians it seems are immune from any kind of accountability to Canadians but that's another discussion.

As an example of the military towing the party line, in 1999 King Hussein of Jordon had the poor taste to die while Jean Chretien was on a ski vacation in Whistler. Chretien chose not to attend the funeral and instead sent Lloyd Axworthy to represent Canada. When the predictable criticism erupted the Prime Minister's office blamed the military saying they were unable to transport Chretien to the funeral on time which was a bald face lie. In fact the military anticipated the PM attending the funeral and had a Boeing 707 waiting for him at Vancouver in plenty of time to go.

The Chief of the Defense Staff at the time (Gen. Maurice Baril) accepted the blame on behalf of all the men and women under his command for supposedly being unable to do something they were fully prepared and waiting to do.

It is the government who dictates what the military says and does not say.

[Old fella]

From another source............

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... -military/

[Moose47]

G'day

"Fantino is only the latest in a long history of defence ministers hung out to dry by their own department"

One slight problem with this statement. Fantino was never the Defence Minister.

Cheers...Chris

[Conestoga]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQB4W8C0 ... r_embedded
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kssZua8 ... r_embedded

[Guido]

G'day

"Fantino is only the latest in a long history of defence ministers hung out to dry by their own department"

One slight problem with this statement. Fantino was never the Defence Minister.

Cheers...Chris

Indeed, "associate minister of defence". Completely different. I bet he's never even met the Minister of Defence.

[Rockie]

Indeed, "associate minister of defence". Completely different. I bet he's never even met the Minister of Defence.

Actually it is completely different.

[bizjets101]

Click Here for Hi-resolution photos of 'Team Elgin' first flight of four-ship formation of F-35A's

[mcrit]

Our current Prime Minister is the most extreme, ruthlessly vicious control freak who ever occupied that office and there are too many obvious examples of what happens to non-political civil servants who go against the party line to dispute that fact. Conservative politicians it seems are immune from any kind of accountability to Canadians but that's another discussion.

....and this has exactly what to do with an F35? Your fair and balanced approach is showing again dude.

[Rockie]

Our current Prime Minister is the most extreme, ruthlessly vicious control freak who ever occupied that office and there are too many obvious examples of what happens to non-political civil servants who go against the party line to dispute that fact. Conservative politicians it seems are immune from any kind of accountability to Canadians but that's another discussion.

....and this has exactly what to do with an F35? Your fair and balanced approach is showing again dude.

You would have to read the sentence immediately before that to provide something called "context". Give it a go dude.

con·text [kon-tekst]
noun
1. The parts of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influencing its meaning or effect: You have misinterpreted my remark because you took it out of context.

[mcrit]

I did dude. Your dislike of this government has exactly zero to do with the F35 or counterfeit parts.

soap·box (spbks)
n.
1. A carton in which soap is packed.
2. A temporary platform used while making an impromptu or nonofficial public speech.
intr.v. soap·boxed, soap·box·ing, soap·box·es Informal
To engage in impromptu or nonofficial public speaking, often flamboyantly.
Idiom:
on (one's) soapbox
Speaking one's views passionately or self-importantly.