The Robert F. Dorr F-35 Follies

Don’t Expect Insight

I believe Robert F. Dorr, long-in-tooth aviation ‘journalist’ and ersatz ‘historian’, reached new editorial and factual lows in September’s Combat Aircraft Monthly with his ‘editorial’ THE F-35 FOLLIES: DON'T EXPECT IMPROVEMENT. I already had a ‘getaroundtoit’ project on the back-burner to deconstruct one of his slightly earlier transgressions, but I found his latest output was such an over-the-top feral rant-job, that it just deserved to be exposed even more. Piece by piece. 
It ties in well with one other post I am working on, another re-look at the mythical Military-Industrial complex, and was helpfully, but unintentionally pointed out to me by an aviation enthusiast in the comments elsewhere.
After you’ve read what he wrote, ask yourself:  how much faith should one place in anything else he’s written? Try and avoid the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect when you next read something dribbling off the page written by Robert F. Dorr.

It begins: 

WAR IS FOUGHT in bad weather, amid noise, chaos and bad smells, with people trying to kill you. Yet even in sunny weather, in the calm of an airshow venue, the Pentagon was unable to get its F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter to show up and to show off.

Hmmm. Dorr opens his ‘editorial’ with a (perhaps ‘slight’?) mis-characterization of the F-35’s non-deployment and subsequent missing of its planned international airshow debut. It’s only a ‘slight’ mis-characterization, IF Dorr is criticizing the DoD and F-35 program partners for not bringing themselves to accept the risk of doing so while an investigation into the engine failure and subsequent near-immolation on 23 June was (and is) ongoing. 
But I doubt that is the case: certainly Dorr isn’t implying he would have advocated the circumvention of normal safety/accident investigation protocols just to meet an airshow deadline and, on the side, accomplish a minor F-35 ‘first’ (Trans-Atlantic, overseas deployment)?
This leaves us only two other possible reasons--that I can see anyway--for Dorr even bothering to bring this subject up. First, he might believe that the F-35 couldn’t actually physically accomplish the deployment if it had been allowed. But that meaning would fly in the face of all the evidence in hand, as the F-35 program was prepared to deploy right up until the Safety Mafia ruled it out completely (See here, and here). 
That leaves us with one last possible meaning. We can assume Dorr is just poking a stick in the F-35’s programmatic ‘eye’ because……because he can? We’ll use that reason for our working hypothesis, but we’ll keep an eye out for any real justification for his aspersion. I mean "justification" above and beyond his desire to merely poke at the program, the jet, or anything else.

The F-35 follies continue. 

This summer's on-again, off-again effort by British and American experts to display an F-35 at airshows at Fairford and Farnborough would have been laughable if it was not symptomatic of larger problems.

So now Dorr punctuates his first claim by broadening it: asserting in effect: ‘I say this was a BIG problem but there’s even BIGGER problems going on!’ Will he provide proper factual evidence and employ logical argumentation to back his accusations up.

It simply is no longer acceptable to make excuses for the F-35, as former British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond did. Hammond brushed off this summer's problems by arguing that the F-35 is 'still in its developmental stage'. Nor can the F-35’s problems be brushed under the rug with bombast, some of which accompanied US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's July 10 visit to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

No, he does more stick-poking. Perhaps Mr. Dorr will now also provide proper factual evidence and logical argumentation to support his assertion that Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s truthful observation that the F-35 is “still in its developmental stage” is ‘brushing’ off the ‘problems’. Or perhaps he’ll expand on what he means about a “bombast” at Eglin? Okay Mr. Dorr. We get it. Dorr is, or is pretending to be, OUTRAGED! So then, will Dorr NOW provide some proper factual evidence and logical argumentation to justify his outrage? Or will he just keep ‘going’?

And least of all is it acceptable to shrug off F-35 woes with a platitude, as did Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, who told reporters , 'When you develop a system like this you're going to have hiccups.'

He. Kept. Going…
We should hold no hope of Dorr bothering to explain why he thinks that “when you develop a system like this you're going to have hiccups” is a “platitude”. He cannot truthfully name an advanced fighter aircraft that has been fielded in the last 50 years for which Hammond’s statement would not apply. (Nor could he do so for any endeavor where the descriptors ‘complex’ and ‘advanced technology’ can be rightfully employed.)
Feh, what the heck. We’ll probably just get more outrage without substance, but let’s ride along to the end…..

It's worse than that. If a dog were to bite you in the butt, that would not make headlines because journalism classes teach that 'dog bites man' isn't news. If you wanted to be the lead story on the BBC evening news, you would have to bite the dog. But there are no 'man bites dog' episodes in the F-35 story because all of it is all too familiar. We've now observed several generations of people who have bungled the F-35 program, lied about it and drawn their pensions, and they are not making news because there is absolutely nothing new in the twisted, terrible tale of the F-35: it's 'dog bites man '.

Aaaannnnd I was right. We got MORE unsupported ranting. This time it was a pointless ‘journalism’ cliché (AKA ‘dog bites man’) followed by….more aspersions: against people involved in the F-35 program. 
So then. Mr. Dorr. Tell us. Tell us who the people were in those “generations” of “bunglers” and ‘liars’? What were their ‘lies’? Why were they ‘lies’? How (through ‘mistaken error’ of course) might you be misrepresenting the true history? Make your freakin’ case…. IF you can.
Here we are, about one fourth of the way through Dorr’s ‘editorial’, before his complaints got to any specificity beyond ‘F-35 is bad!’ and he tells us… ‘somebody lied’? Will Dorr ever provide any information useful to the reader in assessing whether his assertions as being ‘true’, ‘false’, or heck--even ‘remotely plausible’? Or is he just going to keep spitting venom at us through the keyboard?

The F-35 costs too much. That's not news. By my math, a US Air Force squadron could operate five Eurofighter Typhoons - a fighter that impresses many US airmen - for the price of three F-35s. The latest figures are $184 million for a land-based F-35A and $208 million for the carrierborne F-35C… 

Ah! Finally! Something falsifiable.
Dorr’s math is getting a little better (as in closer to the truth than his previous ‘misses’), but he should keep his self-qualifier of having “dumb math” skills until he can gain some ‘smart math’ skills. I won’t guess what his cost number sources are for the Eurofighters, because it doesn’t matter. Per the latest Selective Acquisition Report, for F-35As bought this year and in 2014 “Then Year” Dollars, the F-35A ‘costs’ $181.3M ‘per copy’ ONLY if you include all the support and non-recurring costs. As I doubt the Eurofighter unit costs Mr. Dorr was working with contained the support and non-recurring costs, the idea you could buy more Eurofighters than F-35As is ludicrous. As the same SAR shows the Unit Recurrng Flyaway Costs at about 63% of the $181.3M, or $114.1M  in 2014 dollars for 2014 jets, and Eurofighter costs are not touted as 'low', I must conclude Dorr is playing as fast and loose with the 'present' as he seems to play with the 'past'. 
I'd do the definitive math if it was necessary, but again the SAR saves the day (pages 72 and 75) with the average unit costs of the F-35A (airframe and engine) equaling $77.7M in Base Year 2012 dollars over the life of the program. We will set aside the not so trivial point that a lot of the recurring costs that Dorr includes in his numbers are spent and in the past. this will avoid having to disabuse future commentary on the nuances of Sunk Cost and the Sunk Cost fallacy.

…Early in the program, the F-35 was touted as a low-cost alternative to the F-22 Raptor….

Hey! This is actually a truism….in the sense that it was ONE justification for the Joint Strike Fighter. But it was not the only one or even the primary one. It seems to be just a convenient way for Dorr to punch up the ‘cost’ message he’s trying to sell.
As to primary reasons for the F-35 instead of the F-22, why would anyone want to replace ALL the airplanes now performing a range of missions with a definite ‘strike’ emphasis with an F-22? Answer: they wouldn’t. In the spectrum of multi-role capabilities, the F-22 of course is clearly optimized more to fulfill the Air Dominance role than the Strike role, The Joint STRIKE Fighter is obviously optimized somewhat farther towards the Air-to-Mud end of the scale. So ‘cost’ of the TOTAL force capabilities was but one reason. Did it get overtaken by events? Dorr evidently assumes so:

….But the cost of rolling a single article out of the assembly plant door, to say nothing of lifetime operating expenses, has risen relentlessly until last year when it began to level off…

Dorr is mixing cost elements and cost impacts and presenting them as meaningful (to him --I guess), when without ‘context’ (the C in PACE) they are not meaningful. Actual unit production costs were increasing for delivered Low Rate Initial Production aircraft for a variety of reasons, not the least of which (and likely the ‘most of which’) were reduced size lot buys and in turn, lower production ramp-up rates and breaks in the learning curve. Blame Congress for stretching out the low-rate production effort all under the banner of avoiding modification costs by reducing production rates in fear of that bogeyman: ‘concurrency’.
This is but one of the unaccounted-for cost impacts of the ‘concurrency’ reduction scam being played out in the current budget environment. Dorr’s mention of the “lifetime operating expenses” fails to recognize that those expenses aren’t actual dollars…yet. They are only ‘estimates’, and the quality of the estimates have been horrendous. But the estimates are starting to get better. Therefore the estimate costs are also coming down. If Dorr and his fellow rant-boys were ever forced to acknowledge the fine print in the Selected Acquisition Reports, they would be doing their readers a service.
First, their readers would learn on Page 95 of the 2013 F-35 SAR that:

For the first time, in 2013, the CAPE O&S cost estimate incorporates actual information on component reliabilities obtained from the ongoing F-35 flight operations, including flight test and field operations. This program information is provided from the DoD test community, through the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, and includes actual reliability information on many F-35 components based on data collected during approximately 8,500 hours of flight operations. 

The data include the F-35A and F-35B variants, and flight operations through October 2013. The reliability information has been compared to expected reliabilities for this stage of the program, for the A and B variants, based on reliability growth curves. The 2013 CAPE O&S estimate includes an increase of $15 billion (BY12 $) in DLR costs, relative to the 2012 Milestone B estimate, because component reliability information obtained from actual flight operations data is not consistent with expectations.

While this approach is generally to be commended, to attach any great value to the lifetime costs generated by these estimates this early in the fleet’s flight history is specious. “Approximately 8,500 fleet flight hours” is only about 4 ½% of the 200,000 fleet flight hours for all variants that has been identified as flight hour mark when the expected, designed, and required operational reliability is to be achieved and measured. To attach definitive meaning to reliability numbers at this time is statistical malpractice. To assert associated costs associated to those reliability numbers are worthy of consideration at this time is ludicrous.
The good news, also from Page 95 of the 2013 F-35 SAR, is:

CAPE will continue to work with the DoD operational test community to improve the processes and methods used to incorporate actual data and information on component reliabilities and removal rates, obtained from ongoing flight operations, into the CAPE life-cycle O&S cost estimate for the F-35 program. This information will be used, together with reliability improvement forecasts, to update the life cycle O&S cost estimates as the program proceeds to and beyond IOC.

So perhaps eventually, the support cost numbers will become meaningful. May we expect that the Bob Dorrs of this world will acknowledge this phenomenon when it emerges? Especially if the story ends with greatly reduced estimates? Or should we expect them to use any changes as factoids in order to continue their weaving of fabulous stories, perhaps promoting a repeat of past ‘conspiracy’ and ‘coverup’ memes in the face of positive developments?
Dorr closes out this paragraph with:

…Too many dollars have been poured into an aircraft that isn't worth this many greenbacks and no-one is being held to account….

This is just another unsupported allegation, whereby this time Dorr wrongly presumes he is qualified to make such a judgment for his readers. It is thrown out in the vein of a false ‘everybody knows’ argument. I note here, that this is the closest Dorr gets to discussing the concept of ‘value’ in regards to the F-35’s cost and performance, by simply declaring it isn’t worth the effort. Yet ‘buyers’ apparently do think the F-35 is worth the effort. Should it have occurred to Dorr that perhaps the ‘Customer’ actually does know what’s best for them?
Dorr flows into the next paragraph with a series of statements full of pointless indignation and storytelling. This time however, instead of avoiding providing a ‘context’ for his claims, he attempts to overlay a perversion of history: a fable to create a FALSE context for his readers to absorb:

The F-35 is behind schedule. That's not news. Never before in a defense program have so many examples been airworthy (102 , presumably minus the fire victim) without even one being ready to perform a mission. (In 1942, the first Bell XP-59A Airacomet was configured and equipped for combat on the day of its first flight.) Schedules have been re-written again and again as dates for delivery, the start of training, clearance for night and all-weather operation, and initial operating capability have moved to the right on the calendar. Remember that this summer, officials were not debating whether any F-35 is combat-ready because none is. They were debating whether a few airframes could find their way across the Atlantic to attend a couple of airshows. Too many delays have become embedded in the F-35 saga and no-one is being held to account.

First, even if it were ‘true’, the relevance of decrying that 102 F-35s were airworthy without “even one being ready to perform a mission” would be a ‘red herring’ argument employing misleading vividness: an over the top yet irrelevant argument against the worth or status of the F-35’s performance or program.

It is, however, hyperbolic nonsense on its own: a gross exaggeration. It extrapolates the fact that the F-35 has not yet been ‘cleared’ to do certain things nor been declared operational’ into the mistaken (or malicious) assertion that none of the F-35s could go out tomorrow and actually “perform a mission”. Dorr conveniently leaps past the fact that the administratively prohibited does not preclude the physically possible, and that a full capability yet to be reached does not preclude some capability already being extant in the current fleet. F-35’s are flying and launching weapons that are hitting their intended targets. If it were today’s wartime equivalent of 1942, when the XP-59 emerged, would there be any doubt that the F-35 would be pushed into combat and matured along the way? NO. Because the capability to deploy with reduced capability exists today with existing aircraft and software that exist today.
So as it turns out, the XP-59A analogy is a one of monumental overstatement and epic irrelevance. That is, it would be IF it were actually true. First let us observe that what it took to get a ‘first article’ to first flight in 1942 has little relationship to what it takes to field a modern weapon system, even ignoring the wartime urgency of the jet programs during WW2.
As to whether or not the XP-59A was truly “configured and equipped for combat” on the day of its first flight? Dorr is not even close to being right. Ever see any pictures or videos of the first XP-59A before or after it was modified to carry an open air ‘observer’ ahead of the pilot?

See any guns? 


Even Wikipedia knows guns were installed first in the later YP-59As. Unless Dorr can convincingly argue the XP-59’s ‘day one’ combat capability involved ramming relatively slow airplanes from behind, he is selling snake oil.
To drive home the point that even IF the XP-59A had been armed, it would not have been combat capable, consider how the later YP-59s versions were stomped by P-47s and P-38s in an air combat evaluation trial two years later (Wooldridge, pp13-15). The XP-59A would have been cannon-fodder in 1942. One would then have to ask what would have been the point to claim it was ‘combat ready’ when one knew it was also most likely ‘combat toast’? As the history played out, the limited run of P-59s were deemed unsuitable for combat (Wooldridge) and were relegated to the important, but far less challenging role of America’s first jet trainers.
Dorr now launches into a fairly standard litany of the anti-JSF crowd’s pet ‘stories’: 

The F-35 doesn't work. That's not news. The stealth coating is finicky and requires ground crews to perform labor-intensive maintenance with toxic materials. 

Doesn’t ‘work’? He needs to define what he means by ‘work’. Does he mean it isn’t finished with its development or that it can't or won’t work when its development is done? Next he needs to identify in what ways the F-35 doesn’t ‘work’. If it doesn’t work in some way now, why is that a problem now, before development is complete? Specify. Specify. Specify. Dorr never does.
Evidence of the “stealth coating” being “finicky”? We see none. In fact we’ve seen quite the opposite.
As to “toxic materials”, would that be significantly more toxic than most high quality paint used on high-performance aircraft? Too toxic to use safely? Hardly. Is Dorr trying to get Greenpeace in on his side? Even if the F-35 coatings are like other aircraft coatings, Dorr obviously isn’t aware of what the F-35 program is now working on to bring to fruition, and how structural fiber mat is already used to reduce the LO coating stack-up now.

Also, wouldn’t total environmental impact be more important than just focusing on coatings? Does Dorr give the F-35 any credit for being the 'greenest’ jet possible?
 
What next Mr. Dorr?

The helmet-mounted cueing system has been pronounced cured of its teething troubles not once but twice, and pilots say they still get vibration in certain flight regimes.

The helmet mounted display system is a man-machine interface far more complex than anything that I can remember, made more complex by the fact it has to work over a wide range of light and acoustic environments. This is a capability that is an advanced development of what has been pursued since at least the F-15 program’s early days. Did Dorr expect one of the most advanced features in the F-35 to be ‘easy’? Does he realize everything will “get vibration in certain flight regimes”? 
 The real question is: Is there a problem when and where it does happen? The program says ‘not really’ and Dorr offers no counter. He apparently assumes the worst and expects his readers to take his word for it at face value. I note here that the Gen 3 helmet (the ‘twice’ in Dorr’s ‘fixed twice’) development, in the normal course of its development, is just now being introduced. Dorr therefore can’t provide any answers –only old complaints about old problems. 
Personally, I think there will be more tweaks to the helmet simply because it involves ‘pilots’ and ‘vision’ and relearning how to operate and best use the new capability. Note my statement is as an opinion versus absolute fact: something one would have thought Dorr would have learned how to do a long time ago.

The cannon is not yet cleared for operation and may need to be replaced.

Having a cannon ’cleared for operation’ has everything to do with integrating weapons to a schedule and sequence, and even after anything is 'final' as in 'baseline' it ‘may be replaced’. We know having a gun can be important, if only to keep someone from maneuvering inside your other weapon minimums, but that is about it (Read the “Red Baron” report on the early Air War in SEA). We don’t know how important the gun’s performance will be in the overall scheme of things for the F-35’s overall weapon system effectiveness. 
Dorr’s point here is pretty pointless. IMHO, using a gun to strafe ground targets is a technique with diminishing returns as the battlefield threat situation evolves and increases over time. For that purpose, I think the gun will soon seem to only be there as a ‘just in case’ weapon.

The carrier-based F-35C may or may not have a working tailhook, after years of trial and error.

Pretty condescending dismissal of the C model development, but of course Dorr is wrong again.  
A. It is not trial and error. It is Find–Fix–Fly. A little thing we do within another thing we call ‘development’.
B. Dorr must not have been at Tailhook ’13 where it came out the Navy Customer gave the contractor a faulty wire model the first time around. The contractor needed a good one to develop a viable arresting system design in the first place. Does Dorr assert that is a problem with the F-35 Program or plane instead?
C. Dorr of course also ignores the successes the F-35C has had in catching the wire on land as the graduation to pending sea trials. He also ‘appears’ unaware that there should be further tweaks until development is complete.

The short take-off/vertical landing F-35B emits too much downward jet blast for routine operation aboard assault ships.

Dorr is alluding to changes being made to SOME ships in order to ensure the F-35Bs CAN operate routinely from their decks. BTW: It’s not actually ‘blast’ (‘X’ air mass at a ‘Y’ velocity) per se, so much as it is localized heat with the ‘blast’. My NAVAIR friends find this unremarkable: All new aircraft generate new ship requirements when they are first brought into the fleet.
Hint: The ships are there for the airplanes and the airplanes are the ships’ weapon systems-- not vice versa. Requirements writers make the planes as complementary to carrier designs as they can within the design trade space and change/modify the ship’s design no more than neccessary. Again…so what?

The Pentagon and industry conspired to continue building an aircraft that doesn’t function and no-one is being held to account.

Oooooh! Dorr thinks he can now claim a ‘conspiracy’ is afoot because he’s managed to ‘harrumph’ and ‘humbug’ his way through two thirds of a lame editorial? ‘Doesn’t function’? Get back to us when the F-35 is fielded in baseline Block 3F configuration, or even if it doesn’t look like it WILL get to block 3F. Until then, and again, so what?

What’s left for Dorr to rant about? Oh…apparently LOTS of things.He does go on....

The F-35 has 'an issue with the engine'. That's not news. It dates back to at least 2006, maybe earlier. Decades in development, the F-35 has a long history of problems with its Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan engine that resulted in two groundings in recent years. Now, investigators are eyeing a further engine problem that occurred in the June 23 engine fire at Eglin on take-off and inflicted major damage to an F-35A (serial 10-5015, c/n AF-27). The pilot successfully shut down the aircraft and escaped unharmed. Even Lorraine Martin, Lockheed Martin's anointed apologist for the F-35, acknowledges that the fire is linked to 'an issue with the engine'. Years ago, for purely political reasons, the Pentagon nixed plans for an alternate engine, the more advanced and innovative General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136. Planning and installation of propulsion for the F-35 has been badly mismanaged and no-one is being held to account.

If Dorr was half the aviation writer he pretends to be, he’d have to acknowledge the F135’s development has been rather pedestrian all things considered and as compared with others in the long history of jet engine development. If this stuff was easy, everybody would be building them in their back yard. The only difference between the F135 engine and prior generations of effort is that the predecessors didn’t have a microscope and video cameras on them while they tried to do the little things that people who produce advanced technology call ‘development’.

Even the ‘groundings’ have been fairly few, usually precautionary, and short in comparison to a lot of others. I’d say that’s not too bad, considering the program is developing the biggest most powerful jet fighter turbofan ever, with the most raucous peanut gallery booing them ever. I would also assert these kinds of things occur far more often with mature, fielded jet engine technology than Dorr would be willing to let on, if he knew about them that is. Even civilian jet airliner engines have safety restrictions, stand downs for inspections, etc. from time to time. Example? 
How about the CFM56? One of the most widely used and successful engines in the world. Just the ‘active’ Airworthiness Directives open on the CFM56s can be found here. Continuous safety concern and monitoring is a fact of life, and Dorr should appreciate the value in that concern and monitoring.
If Dorr had also paid closer attention before the F136 engine was cancelled,  he would have also known that ‘Cost’ was the driver that overrode the ‘Risk’ of going to a single engine type. If he knew but still insisted on typing what he did….well, draw your own conclusions.
And of course, there simply had to be SOME politics in play at time. It was a Congressional topic of interest wasn’t it? 
From Dorr’s wilda** claim about a “more advanced and innovative General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136” I’d say politics (or marketing) was STILL in play. The F136 had the same kinds of difficulties the F135 had at a similar stage of development, but was rightfully considered immature compared to the F135 at the time of cancellation. In the spring of 2010, the F136 was only 700 hours into a 10,000 hour test program and had not been flight tested. No one knows what problems it would have encountered had it been fully developed. But in its cancellation, the F136 has become the mythical 'success-that-could-have-been-but-never-was' to the proverbial ‘some’ in the backbenches.

Dorr Goes 'All In'

Now, no matter how outrageous you might have found Dorr’s rant so far, in closing he’s about to go all ‘fundamentalist preacher’ on us. He’s casting his gaze beyond the F-35 program to identify what he apparently sees as the font of all defense acquisition ills. (Say Halleluiah!).

The F-35 is now the biggest, costliest aircraft program in history, yet its vicissitudes are only an emblem for a larger issue. In this capital on my side of the Atlantic, from the Air Staff (in the Pentagon Building) to K Street (where lobbyists hang their hats), the feeling is growing that the entire system for acquisition of military equipment has broken down
One former Pentagon analyst said, 'Industry now produces overpriced junk for our men and women in uniform and' - guess what? - 'no-one is being held to account'….

Ahhhh. The ubiquitous unnamed ‘former Pentagon analyst ‘. Was it Chuck Spinney or Pierre Sprey? Or was it someone else in the Faux-Reform Old Guard? Whoever it was, why not name them—unless the name itself would open the statement to doubt and dismissal? I’m looking for the source of this quote, but have been unable to find it so far. I’ll keep it in mind for a later revisit. Oh, and 'So What?

Critics often quote a January 17, 1961 speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower in which the 34th US President - one of history's great military commanders - warned of the dangers of a 'military industrial complex'. 'Ike' had intended to sound the alarm about a 'Congressional military industrial complex' but, in a rare lapse of judgment, deleted the first word before delivering the speech.

Here Dorr begins an argumentative ‘run home to Mama’ in the form of the mythical Military-Industrial Complex, but he once again creates a false context, an overreach, by simply getting the history ‘wrong’. 
IMHO the major problem with ‘Pop Historians’ like Dorr (or worse, as professional post-modern revisionist historians do) is that they tend to glom on to anything that supports their narrative and nothing that doesn’t. By doing so, they tend to propagate lies, half-truths, and rumors along with only carefully selected facts. Here Dorr promotes the discredited story that there was a draft of Eisenhower’s farewell speech with the word ‘Congressional’ linked to the MI terminology. As James Ledbetter has clearly observed and cogently summarized, there is no real evidence such a draft EVER existed. 
Again, even Wikipedia gets this one right, so one has to wonder how much of a ‘Pop Historian’ Dorr really is if he goes 0-2 up against Wikipedia within the confines one little ol' editorial.

But as they say on TV 'wait! there's more!'... 

Not even Eisenhower could have foreseen a Washington that could spend billions without successfully building a Littoral Combat Ship, an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, or a Joint Strike Fighter. Just to cite one example, look at the way industry has suborned the Connecticut congressional delegation: the engine issue for the F-35 is small stuff compared to a single helicopter manufacturer's iron grip, without bidding or competing, on the next presidential helicopter and the US Air Force's combat rescue helicopter. There was no competition for any of these items because competition cuts costs and brings innovation, and no-one in Washington wants that - but that isn't news, either.

Wow. 
Dorr whipped up a real grab bag of misdirection and obfuscation. He rehashes the unsupported claim that the F-35 is ‘unsuccessful’ and expands the claim against the LCS (a still-ongoing Navy experiment with new strategies and new technical solutions) and the EFV (a cost vs. capability conundrum if there was one and still being sorted out). He then claims somebody (Pratt and Whitney I presume) has ‘suborned’ the Congresscritters of Connecticut without evidence, nor any mention of the activities of Congressional counterparts who pushed for the F136 (selective outrage much?). 
At least Dorr goes off the Peacenick-Leftist ‘Reformer’ reservation on this one. Perhaps he failed to get the memo that cancelling the F136 was a good thing?
 
Someone should also inform Mr. Dorr that competition takes many forms, as in the two LCS types with different technical approaches, winnowed down from many COMPETING solutions to compete for larger (and at one time possibly exclusive) future buys. He is also apparently unaware that sometimes competition isn’t advisable or possible (as when only one manufacturer bids on a small program like the Presidential helicopter program), or there isn’t enough money in the pot for developing a viable new alternative to an established helicopter design in meeting an existing mission shortfall (such as the AF Combat Rescue helicopter which was also stymied by requirements changes).
 
Dorr Drones On

If the world made sense, someone would pull the plug on the F-35 follies, squadrons waiting for a new fighter would receive other types instead, and bigwigs would be castigated, if not thrown into prison. But that's not news because – guess what? - no-one is being held to account.

No Mr. Dorr...
If the world made sense, people would stick to concerning themselves with things they actually know and understand, retire before they can no longer grasp the concepts needed to understand the world as it moves beyond their ken. In such a world, those that still insisted on making popping sounds about that which they know not, or have accused others of malfeasance without viable proof would be pointed at and continuously mocked into the oblivion they deserve. But that’s not happening because – guess what? – people who possess inconsequential knowledge constantly attempt to apply their inconsequential knowledge to consequential things to ill effect in this world and yet, are NEVER held to account.

Print Ref: The P-80 Shooting Star: Evolution of a Jet Fighter; E.T. Wooldridge; Smithsonian Institution Press; Washington DC; 1979

Update 1 November:

Recent comments in this post's thread have lead me to drop the veil a little on a post I've been working on for some time. It won't be a particularly long post, in fact it will be short compared to most that have taken this much time to prepare in the past. It is just this one requires more careful attention to the level of detail and scope to be covered, The working title of the upcoming post is

The draft of the opening paragraph of the post now reads:

How Faux Military Reform Machine works: Past and Present

This post is mostly for the folks who aren't old enough (or weren't paying attention), to have caught the 'Military Reform' crowd's act the first time the circus came to town. There's nothing really different about their 'message' this time ("complexity bad!", "costs too high!") but the machine itself has been retooled over the years in reaction to political, technical, and societal developments. To understand how the machine got to the way it is wired up now, we'll first discuss how the machine was kluged together in the first place. I won't go into great lists of who the players and the played 'were', or even 'are' . If it comes up at all it will be in context of the how the shaping of the machine itself was affected.

FYI: 
Mr Dorr will be shown to a "Loyal Babbler".  

Loyal Babblers play a major role

 in the Faux Military Reform Machine.

The F-35 Issue: 'Food' for Thought?

No. Thin Intellectual Gruel

Someone in Italy named 'Gherardo Albano' has an internet ‘editorial’ up that was linked to by AV Week (for some unfathomable reason). The title: “The F-35 Issue: Food for Thought”.

But the intellectual gruel he offers is so thin, that if it were real food, an anorexic supermodel wouldn’t bother to throw it back up. It is so bad, I decided to Fisk it here for posterity.  The editorial is in italics. My comments are in purple.

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UPDATE #1 29 July 13: For 'some' reason, you may have trouble getting to the site in the above link to original post under examination. I'm getting feedback from a couple of people that the link is "broken", yet the link when entered into the browser works fine-- It is almost as if the traffic to the link is being blocked when accessed from this site (who knows?). If the link doesn't work for you, type:" http://www.lindipendente.eu/wp/en/2013/07/13/f-35/ " without the "" marks in your browser.

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We begin....

These days there’s a big discussion on whether Italy should buy 90 Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs. The aim of this article is to analyze the overall picture within which such an important decision should be taken. In particular, there are two separate fields of analysis, one purely military and another related to economic issues. Let’s analyze them separately.

Sounds acceptable for the purposes of sharing information…so far. I note here, however that we must remember that ‘Economic’ Power is an equal to Military Power as two of a Nation’s Elements of Power. They support each other and the Nation itself.

Military matters
From a strategic point of view, at the moment, it is not foreseeable that a crisis may result in a conventional war. ...

Whoa! Stop. Right. There.
 
Rarely does an author open an argument with a logical fallacy, in this case a “Non Sequitur”. Usually, employers of this tactic try to lull an audience into a stupor before they try to slip one of these by their readers. Note: There’s a dash of “Begging the question” here as well, where something is first expressed as a presumed truth, and then later used to fallaciously support a claim or conclusion.
 
Casual readers, especially those of a like-mind with an author, might still miss his use of this logical fallacy because it is executed en passant; carefully avoiding the unwritten non sequitur (“it does not follow”). The ‘does not follow’ part isn’t expressed, but is presumed as unspoken fact to support the arguments that will soon follow.
I wonder if the author has legal training because this has the flavor of an ‘opening argument’, otherwise I have to doubt the author was even aware of his transgression. This does not bode well for the rest of the opinion piece, for it hints that the author is a ‘true believer’ of some sort. The only question is: a ‘true believer’ in “what?”. My main concern at this point now is how much will Albano’s remaining argumentation will rest on ‘beliefs’ instead of ‘facts’?
The ‘does not follow’ part? The fact that “it is not foreseeable that a crisis may result in a conventional war” does not preclude an ‘unforseen’ conventional war. It does not follow that because one cannot envision a conflict, a conflict will not arise. In fact, History tends to tell us that the wars we ‘see coming’ are often the wars we are able to sidestep…into the wars we don’t see coming and that usually bite us in the end. I think my first question to the author at this point would be “How many years before Operation Allied Force or even the recent military intervention in Libya, did you ‘foresee’ either/both of the conflicts coming?” The second would be “Why didn’t you do something to prevent them?”

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UPDATE #2 31 July 13: I initially was going to refernce this link to punch up the point that we tend to not see (cognitive sense) 'coming', the wars we end up fighting: 25th Annual Military History Seminar- the Keaney Session , but thought it might be a little overkill. I've revised my thoughts on the subject, in part as a response to reading the first part of "Unknown's" comment in the thread for this post.

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   …Of course this does not mean that we can dismantle the entire military. Defense continues to be necessary to every nation, in the present geopolitical framework, including peaceful countries such as Switzerland and Sweden, and certainly cannot be dismantled if it cannot be restored quickly in case of emergency.

Ahh! Pabulum designed to allay fears concerning the author’s reasonableness: An observation that only the most rabid anarchist or peacenik might find objectionable. Are we being ‘lulled’?

As far as we are concerned, the Italian Air Force now has a line of flight divided between air defense, consisting of about 72 Eurofighter Typhoon, and attack, consisting of 36 AMX International AMX and 48 Panavia Tornado PA-200. Then there are of course all the other non-combat operational units like tactical transport, refuelers, rescue, VIP transport, training, and so on. The Italian Navy has about 15 McDonnell Douglas AV-8B Harrier II Plus aircraft characterized by the ability of short take-off — the vertical take-off is militarily marginal — and short or vertical landing. This capability is an essential but expensive element of protection of the fleet which makes it different from most of the other navies in the world.

The audience is thus presented with a description of how the author, using a ‘Royal We’ editorial style, views and mentally organizes the Italian Navy and Air Force. I have no problem with the explanation, except perhaps the last sentence. It makes an assertion that may or may not be true as to the uniqueness of the Italian STOVL capability and relevance to the fleet.
But the assertion is completely unsupported, and I imagine there are several arguments that might be made against it (one comes immediately to mind). I note here that I wouldn’t disagree with the author on this point. The last sentence expresses a presumption the readers are expected to simply accept as ‘fact’.
We will see later that this sets up a ‘STOVL capability of the F-35B will be essential because I say it is essential’ argument: the author presents more build up to his “begging the question” fallacy.  

The combat aircraft lineup is now a dim memory of what it was in the eighties, when during the Cold War there were more than 200 aircraft for air defense and 350 for the attack role. They have already been reduced due to the organic decrease of the external threat. What remains can be considered a core of resources, human, material and methodological facilities to maintain the expertise, knowledge, methodologies and a minimum of military capability in case the need arises.

I have no major problem with this part except the view of ‘military capability’ as expressed is rather sophomoric. The confused taxonomy listing ‘military capability’, which is a combination of knowledge (expertise), methodologies (along with missing ‘hardware’ and ‘doctrine’), in the list itself may be a translation error. I believe a far better ‘book’ definition of military capability can be found in the definition of the Military Element of a nation’s power.

It is clear therefore that cutting or reducing it further would mean loosing [sic] a capability that needs between 5 to 10 years to build up again if a serious threat becomes visible. Italy would rebuild their forces almost from scratch hoping to have the time to do it. New combat-ready rookie pilots would need about 5 years. Ordering, receiving and organizing for new aircraft, performing maintenance, recruiting technicians, would again require between 5 and 10 years. In the case of the Navy, rebuilding would take much longer if we were to lose the aircraft carriers.

No. And though I’m tempted to go into excruciating detail why ALL of the author’s imagined timelines to reconstitute a force are pure hokum, I will resist the urge and merely point out the timelines appear to focus only on a time to train up the end-use operator/maintainer. Even if you get a cadre of “new combat-ready rookie” pilots in 5 years (a highly suspect assumption as-- unlike the children of Lake Wobegone-- not all fighter pilots are ‘above average’), how long will it take to train up enough force leaders that have the experience and knowledge/skills and doctrinal support to lead them?
I’ll call this “B.S.” but am willing to retract same if anyone can show me a contemporary peacetime military organization that has developed, fielded and employed an advanced military capability after replacing an existing capability much less creating a new capability in under 10 years…. ”successfully”. The 5-10 year time span offered clearly provides nothing for the organizational, doctrinal and infrastructure development required to actually field and execute military power by a modern homogenous society, much less a Western democracy as fractured politically as Italy (or the U.S.A. for that matter).

The above considerations lead me to say that maintaining a capacity in the defense sector by replacing aircraft that reach the end of service life with more modern and competitive aircraft (relative to hostile forces) is a crucial need. The alternative would be a great risk for our country given the current geo-political instability worldwide.

Other than the “above considerations” shouldn’t lead anyone anywhere, this may seem reasonable…on the surface.
We will soon see how the author defines “more modern and competitive aircraft”. Guess what he leaves out or diminishes? Any bets they involve aspects of combat aircraft design that F-35 was built upon?

The attack aircraft in question will still need to be replaced over the next 6-12 years for reasons of obsolescence and useful life. The older a plane becomes, like a car, the more maintenance costs until the situation becomes untenable.

This is what is known as the “setup”. I always look for this part on a point of argument. It is where your debate opposition states something he doesn’t expect an argument over then delivers a contrarian ‘but’, as in “Yes. Blah blah blah, but XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.” Some of the best advice I ever received was from an Air Force Lt Col (Engineer) during TASVAL79 who told me: “Always remember Mac, everything before the ‘But’ is Bullsh*t.  The setup indicates we are about to be spoon-fed the Bullsh*t.
Also note the author lists “obsolescence” and “useful life” yet only just touches on one aspect of the impacts at the end of “useful life”.

The current situation is the following:
• The AMX are technologically obsolete and should be replaced soon;

I’ll buy that, but for reasons I already know. WHY does the author think they (or the other aircraft for that matter) are “technologically obsolete”? It seems the author is twisting himself into contortions avoiding the details concerning what makes a fighter aircraft “obsolete”.

• Tornadoes are being updated and this standard can last another five-ten years or even more;

Even if it were true, 5-10 years is ‘tomorrow’ even if you have a replacement in hand. I note (again) the author is using a form of “begging the question”: we are expected to accept his claim is ‘true’ because he states it as a ‘truth’.

• AV-8B Navy aircraft have 20 years of operating life and do not need to be replaced now, but in the medium term, unless unexpected problems of maintenance arise.

Assuming the Italian AV-8’s haven’t been flown into the ground and won’t be in the future, I’ll buy 20 years on the airframe durability. But an airplane is far more than just the airframe, and the author somehow fails to mention the relative obsolescence of the AV-8 design itself.
 I’ll not pursue the hole in the author’s argument for now, except to first ask: “What makes this author ignore the fact that like all pre-5th Generation aircraft, obsolescence will probably overcome the aircraft before they are ever close to being worn out?”
Oh, and about the authors last turn of the phrase using the weasel words “unless unexpected problems of maintenance arise”: In my 40+ years of aerospace experience “unexpected problems of maintenance” have never failed to “arise”. Why assume otherwise? 

Let’s see now what could be the alternative having already narrowed down to the most plausible hypothesis:

Has anyone seen any ‘narrowing down’ yet? I didn’t either.

1. replace the strike aircraft with the F-35 variants A and B, taking into account that B is the only possible replacement for the Navy’s AV-8B as there are no other STOVL aircraft types;
2. replace the AV-8B with F-35B and all others with more Typhoon, Tranche 3, which have advanced attack capabilities.

What happened to #3? After all, it is only the freakin' ‘current plan’:
3. replace the AV-8B with F-35B and the AMX/Tornados with the F-35A. If the author sees fit to ignore the current plan, why then shouldn’t we also consider an expansion on that plan to come up with a ‘#4’?:
4. retire some/all Typhoons in recognition of the inherent Air-to-Air capability that F-35As bring to the Air-to-Air fight.

This suggests that for the Navy it is important to buy the F-35B while the Air Force has in fact two possible choices. Let us see the features of the two possible candidates.

Well, since the author saw fit to selectively attenuate his list of options ahead of time, of course he would reach this conclusion.

The development program for the F-35 is not proceeding well. …

“Not proceeding well”. One may argue the point using the “as compared to what?” other modern (last 50 years) and similarly advanced technical development efforts or even to simply other large, highly complex, government programs-- as the F-35 program fall into both categories. I would therefore challenge Mr. Albano to name one program in either category that did/has not experienced as many or more challenges than the F-35 program. I also challenge him to name any of them that did a better job of dealing with them than the F-35 program has to-date. This is the kind of simplistic thought that makes my Aerospace Engineer blood boil. But on the plus side, it provides me yet another opportunity to quote a favorite: J. R. Pierce.

Novices in mathematics, science, or engineering are forever demanding infallible, universal, mechanical methods for solving problems.

(I never tire of referencing Dr. Pierce)

… Let’s say that there were basic errors: starting production of the plane when the development was still in progress and the desire to develop three versions — Standard A, B vertical take-off, C for aircraft carriers with catapult — from a single basic design coming to affect all versions with the requirements of the most difficult vertical take-off version. This has led to a significant increase in costs and the forced relaxation of specifications to be met, without which the project would had [sic] been unfeasible. …

“Let’s say?”—This is yet another ‘Begging the Question’ logical fallacy, only this one is a ‘twofer’: two popular, yet unsubstantiated/perverted criticisms in one. They are: 1) ‘Concurrency’ and 2) ‘STOVL Requirements adversely affected CTOL and CV designs’.
1. Concurrency. ‘Some’ claim concurrent development increases cost and schedule. This assertion on the F-35 has become a rather popular ‘political’ truth, but it is still not an actual truth. ‘Concurrency’ when studied by those with expertise to do so has consistently been shown to benefit advanced programs, and IMHO I’ve adequately covered this topic many times on many web domains, but have dealt with it most completely in 2011 in my Congressional Bloviation on Concurrency post, so I will not go into detail again here. But I will note that the post stands up well, especially in light of the Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics testifying before Congress just a month ago that “Concurrency costs are coming down faster than program estimates, and production costs are coming down as well.”
2. STOVL Requirements adversely affected CTOL and CV designs. This is perhaps one of the most tiresome canards propagated by the anti-JSF crowd. ALL aircraft design involves tradeoffs. In the case of the F-35, the dominant tradeoffs were made between the requirements to perform air-to-air and air-to-ground missions. In all the assertions that the F-35’s design was ‘compromised’ somehow because of the STOVL requirement, I have not once read once ‘how’ the design was allegedly ‘compromised’.
The author can’t name one any more than any other before him. The most dominant ‘F-35B unique’ requirement in the total design effort was ‘low weight’ in support of the STOVL operation. If anything that requirement drove better F-35 CTOL/CV designs as well. There are perhaps some dimensioning restrictions in the design for ship-borne operations, but even with those the most a critic could claim is that they ‘might’ have driven a different (not necessarily better) design than the F-35A model would have been as a standalone design.
NOTE: from this point forward, Albano’s opinion piece really starts rambling all over the place so I will be inserting comments in brackets as often as possible. If his thoughts were better organized, I would have been finished yesterday. If I don’t use brackets […], I would have to chop up his sentences as well as his paragraphs, making it even tougher for the reader to follow.

… In any case we are talking about a highly advanced aircraft not only for the use of new stealth technology — which basically means opposing radar has difficulty in detection — but also for new production technologies and the integration of a lot of electronics called sensor fusion — to put it simply, allowing better awareness of the situation around the aircraft.

Mr. Albano obviously has no idea how important Low Observables and F-35-grade Sensor Fusion are to the modern air combat equation judging by how this entire piece is written. The “difficulty in detection” is a “damning with faint praise” fallacy. Low Observability disrupts the entire kill chain at every step, from attempts to detect to terminal weapon end game, and forces an opponent to have to begin the process all over again when the chain is broken. 

The program currently sees continuation of testing, and the manufacture of aircraft is not yet at the minimum standard for combat. [So? Is this a recognition of an already recognized ‘risk’?] In short, the aircraft to the current date is not satisfactory [It is still in LRIP, Duh!], but over time it will be excellent in the attack role. It will remain however, in my opinion, insufficient in the role of air defense, since it hasn’t a powerful enough radar. [“However” is another form of “But”--See earlier note on that topic. As to “not powerful enough”, Mr. Albano has no idea know how “powerful” it is. I also seriously doubt he has any idea how the whole of F-35 ‘Sensor Fusion’ is greater than the sum of its parts, including the AESA.]

In addition, currently the F-35 can only carry two anti-aircraft missiles when in stealth mode and this severely limits the ability to deal with numerous enemy formations [Patently false. Current plans call for maximum of 4 internal A2A missiles, with provisions for more. The capability supports very favorable projected exchange loss ratios, so Albano’s “opinion” which based on who-knows-what misinformation is of no consequence]. Kinematic capabilities also contribute to a poor verdict on its air to air performances. [More opinion based upon….what? There isn’t enough information in the public domain for outsiders to pass judgment on the subject, only conjecture.]
Cost for purchase and maintenance remains to be firmly determined, which will be discussed later.

Count the internally-carried Air-to-Air missiles in the baseline plan...

Yes, it is all just ‘estimates’ now. Just like the future costs of any aircraft, even ones that are now flying, So?.

The alternative to the F-35A is the Typhoon, a European project which is already mature owing to further development with the so-called Tranche 3 (T3) that Italy should acquire, funds permitting, to complete the line of air defense. [Italy isn’t buying the F-35 to replace the Typhoon in the Air Superiority mission, so what is Albano’s point?] The T3 develops the plane incorporating a new type of AESA radar and new types of weapons for air-to-air and air-to-ground combat, increasing significantly the military value and configuring it as a true multi-role aircraft. The Typhoon does not have stealth technology, but has top rated kinematic capabilities — speed, acceleration, turning — and self-defense exceeding the F-35. [No. See earlier comment about kinematics and exchange rates] For comparison a Typhoon has at least six missile, has wider antenna coverage and can go higher and faster.

'Wider’ antenna coverage? Does he mean scan angle? Is he talking about the current or future EFA radar? In any case this can be countered by the F-35 changing operational techniques, so “So What?”. The Typhoon is far more observable at every range and angle with far less situational awareness than an F-35. It can go higher and faster than an F-35… sometimes. Such as when it’s not carrying any significant go-to-war payload.

The plane on the left can carry two 2K lb precision weapons and 2 Air-to-Air Missiles to 50K ft+ and fly 1000+ nm and dash at M1.6 in this configuration. The plane on the right with the same load? Not so much.  

A comparison of the F-35 and Typhoon T3 must be set to a period of the useful life of about 30 years which brings me to the following considerations:

1. the F-35 is more technologically advanced and this is reflected in a number of benefits including that in the next 10-15 years, a further development potential is possible to adapt the plane to new threats;

Ah. Cherry-picking a timeframe. How about for the next 30-40 years? The Typhoon conceptual design is already 30 years old, based on even older requirements and designed for a different (pre-stealth) age. It will be lucky if it is viable in any scenario in 15 years.

2. the stealth technology is the F-35′s primary means of protection from interception, but there are many plans to reduce the effectiveness of this technology and high maintenance costs of stealth protection is a sustainability issue;

I’ve lost count of the assumptions, myths and half truths presented in Albano’s piece as ‘fact’ that we’re expected to accept. These are two more.
First: Low Observability. LO is a combination of technology, techniques and tactics. It is no more ‘static’ than the efforts to defeat it, and it is always developed and applied with an eye towards of continuous improvement. This is yet another case where someone with no actual background assumes the LO an aircraft starts with, is the LO it ends with. We do pre-planned product improvements on all aircraft systems, and operational techniques always evolve over time, What makes anyone think LO is any different? Albano needs to start someplace on this topic, so he can start here, and I’ve already provided the link to Grant’s Radar Game.
Second: LO High Cost of maintenance. Mr. Albano has obviously missed all the discussions on how the F-35 had LO supportability designed-in based upon experiences of the past. If he were a serious student of maintainability and supportability, he would have observed that in all the reports that have criticized the F-35 to-date, there have been none -- zero, zilch, nada -- that have criticized the F-35 Sortie Generation Rates. You don’t get the SGR you are looking for if you have excessive maintenance burdens of any type.

3. Italy overall has few aircraft and multi-role capability, although not a main requirement, will definitely have value. In this respect, the Typhoon is great for air defense while the F-35 is marginal;

Need I point out that Albano is again ‘begging the question’? And over a point tangential to the reasons the Italians are buying F-35s in the first place? I’d like to also pose the question as to “How great are you at air defense?”, if low observable opponents will most likely ‘see’ you before ‘you’ see them?

4. in the attack role the F-35 is invaluable in the event of a confrontation with technologically advanced opponents in the early days of the war when air defenses are fully functional; when the fight shifts to trucking bombs, the two aircraft are substantially equal.

‘Substantially equal’? This is ‘begging the question’ again. Does the Typhoon have anything like the F-35’s ability to distinguish friend from foe on a fluid battlefield? Does the Typhoon have anything that provides a pilot with a clear view of the target in the day, night, in any direction and in all weather conditions? More importantly, can the Typhoon do so with a reasonable expectation of not being successfully engaged by Surface-to-Air threat? As proven in Operation Allied Force, where the Serbians elected to shepherd their air defense resources, you can never be certain to have eliminated the Surface to Air threat, you can only have varying degrees of confidence you have been able to attrit/mitigate it. Flying a non-LO aircraft over hostile territory is an invitation to eventually get shot down. How “equal’ a bomb-truck can a Typhoon be if attrition is factored in? Answer: not very equal at all.
 
A single flight line on the Typhoon would have major economic benefits  for training, spare parts and so forth  while the same proposition cannot be said for the F-35 since it is not an interceptor. 
 
We now see Albano, having praised the secondary strike capability of a Typhoon, making no examination of the F-35’s capabilities in the Air-to-Air mission. While no doubt the F-35 would have to perform the mission differently than a Typhoon (the Typhoon’s great top speed in a relatively clean configuration is a direct product of the ‘Interceptor’ mission requirement),it has not been shown that the F-35 could not perform the mission. If viewed as a ‘fleet’ vs. ‘individual fighter capability’ could an argument be made that an “all F-35” fleet in greater, same, or fewer total numbers than a combined F-35/Typhoon fleet could perform both A-A and A-G roles? Has Albano reduced this effort to a EFA Typhoon advocacy paper?

In the future, industries are developing unmanned combat aircraft vehicle (UCAV) stealth such as the X-47B. These are designed, much like the F-35, to carry out attacks in extremely dangerous air defences. Therefore, the specific strength of the F-35 could in the future be better carried out by a European UCAV.

The X-47B just now completed the technology demonstration step in the combat UAV evolution. Whatever the follow-on program produces if it even materializes, it will still be only the first step on a long journey that will take several generations of developments, and still, it may never make the manned combat aircraft 'obsolete'. File this under ‘wishful thinking’.

Regarding the choice of the Air Force to ask for 60 F-35As and 15 F-35Bs, I consider that, assuming we stick to the F-35, the best solution would be to buy all F-35As because: the B version costs 30% more than the A; is, performance wise, inferior to the A version; but most importantly because the operational motivation is rather weak. In fact, the F-35Bs were required by the Air Force to be used in support of expeditionary situations where adequate runways are not available. If this is the need, then it would be more effective to use F-35As for the Navy, considering an increased purchase to 20. To save money, in case of F-35 purchase, a unified management of today’s separate lines of flight of the two armed forces, including training, should be enforced.

This part is so disjointed I hardly know where to begin. First the F-35B is essential for the Navy because it can operate off the Cavour. Now the Navy should buy land based versions? The author’s ‘logic’ holds only if the Navy never goes farther asea than where the land-based F-35As can support it. While throwing around a ‘30% higher cost’ number is Albano aware that the STOVL sortie generation rate specification is about 33% higher than the F-35A or F-35C? What ‘costs’ are he using to compare F-35A and F-35B unit costs? Is he aware the program is managed to minimize total life cycle costs instead of initial procurement unit costs? Is he aware that in a 25-30 year weapon system lifetime, typically 2/3rds of total costs are in sustainment?

Economic and industrial matters
The Typhoon is a plane in which the domestic industry’s original share — design and production — was 21%, but in the case of additional, future purchases may be negotiated higher. [Very nice. Good luck with that. How many future EFA sales are expected? A large percentage of “very little” is ‘not much’. ] Also with the manufacturer of the Typhoon consortium, in case of additional purchases, or beyond the commitments entered into with the consortium, you could negotiate a package of financial compensation even exceeding 100%, just like the big world buyers (India, Brazil, Korea, etc.). In addition, the extension of the production of the Typhoon could lead to further sales abroad, with additional financial benefits for Italy.

In light of the procurement history and dearth of potential customers, that sounds like an awful lot of wishful-thinking to me. The Eurofighter program cost and schedule history make the F-35 look like a model acquisition program. 

In contrast, the Italian share of the F-35 project is 4% for Development and is not assessable for the production, as the supply tenders are still in progress. Italy has invested over the years about 1 million U.S. dollars in the development of the F-35 and so did Finmeccanica partnering with the MoD for the “FACO” in Cameri. We must consider that, while the percentage is lower, it is on a much larger number of planes and a hypothetical 4% of 2,000 aircraft is comparable with a 100% of 75 aircraft. Technologically, Italian companies are fully conversant with Typhoon production technologies while those of the F-35 are partially unknown. The original contribution to the development of the F-35 was finalized contingent on the acquisition of new technologies for Italian companies, but the U.S. has severely limited these knowledge transfers.[It should be noted here that is precisely the kind of criticism the F-16 Multinational program dealt with in the early days. We must observe that the technological benefits received by the partner nations brought most of them back for more with the F-35. This smacks of frustration borne on wings of unreasonable expectations.] In addition, if Italy will purchase F-35s, any national enhancement, update or integration cannot be performed without U.S. approval and involvement, so the F-35 should be considered a “limited sovereignty airplane”.

Not true. But a commonly repeated oversimplification often committed by people who ‘think’ they understand how the F-35 software design works. The author is apparently unfamiliar with MILS or EALS-7 . Users will be able to ‘nationalize’ their own aircraft if new systems are required and add weapons (the aerospace equivalent of adding an ‘App’) if they wish. But the idea behind the common core software design is to ensure commonality and in turn reduced software maintenance cost over the life of the program. Canada, Australia, and the UK are planning to jointly develop a ‘reprogramming laboratory’ of their own (page 77). There is nothing stopping Italy from doing the same on their own or in concert with another partner nation. 

Both the UK and Israel have strongly opposed the American policy in this regard, but for now, only Israel has managed to get limited access to electronic systems in order to make partial integrations nationally. To better understand the implications, if tomorrow the Italian Air Force requires the integration of a weapon or an external tank, it would have to ask the U.S. to perform it, paying and waiting for their development cycles in which, predictably, they would not be a priority. [Again, NOT true (see above). But I suppose it is a convenient appeal to nationalism and trade protectionists]
On acquisition costs for the F-35, there is an extensive bibliography, made of figures difficult to compare and review — a real jungle — so if there are two numbers are one is double the other, they could be both true since they are based on different assumptions. [And include different cost items, or ‘different year’ currency values, or both. So what?]
In addition the F-35 is in the development stage and not yet in full production, having acquisition costs that vary from year to year. We now have, for the A model, an approximate figure well above $100 million. Flight costs per hour is also a topic for fortune tellers, but the numbers are scaring the USAF. ['Scaring': A fallacious Appeal to Emotion directed at the uninformed]
The Typhoon is well known for acquisition and flight costs. [Not so much “well known” as seen as an outcome to be avoided]
Conclusions
In my view, the purchase of the F-35 should be only for the 15-20 copies for the Navy, to be purchased along a period of 7 to 10 years from now, allowing the maturation of the aircraft and the reduction in purchasing costs. To date, a fully operational aircraft is scheduled for 2019, if there are no serious problems on software development, a key component in the present day for a fighter plane. The Air Force, in contrast, has a technological option that makes it possible, even if with operational differences, to purchase the F-35A or the Typhoon.

Only if you actually believe the Typhoon will be effective and survivable for the next 30 years or so.

It is my opinion that it is useful, both economically and industrially, that Italy, since there are no orders signed besides 3 F-35As, reviews in detail the alternatives, requiring two offers, with guaranteed costs and industrial compensations, for the two alternatives: Typhoon T3 and F-35A. The timing for the purchase of the 75 aircraft, may be over a fairly long period and without immediate financial commitments. In case of confirmation of the F-35, it would be desirable that the purchases were delayed until 2018 to 2020, in time to start replacing the AMX.

Oh yes, because everything is always cheaper if you stretch out the purchase and do it later (/sarc). Apparently the author has never heard of Economic Order Quantities.

This would be a nice as we consider the current crisis that does not allow for non-essential digressions. Defense cannot be neglected, but we can certainly wait a few years before deciding and purchasing.

My Conclusion:
Mr. Albano’s screed is ill-conceived, poorly written, drivel. It remain so even when allowing for what must be lost in the English translation. He presents nothing more than a laundry list of unsubstantiated and/or perverted anti-JSF complaints with a dash of pro-Eurofighter ‘feelings’ (vs. fact). In law, it is said that if the facts are on your side then argue the facts. If the law is on your side, then argue the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law on your side, then ‘pound on the table’. Mr. Albano is clearly ‘pounding on the table’.

Veritas Locutus Est, Causa Finita Est