From a photo taken after the aircraft had been towed into port, we can tell that my Granddad’s photo was obviously taken after many repairs have already been made. This is what the plane looked like when it reached Hawaii:The last PN-8 was converted by the Naval Aircraft Factory to the PN-9, a one-of-a-kind aircraft. It had redesigned tail surfaces and revised engine nacelles with large nose radiators. This aircraft set a world distance record for seaplanes in September 1925 when it flew from San Francisco to Hawaii under the command of Commander John Rogers. While it had to sail the last 559 miles after running out of fuel, the 1,841 miles covered by air was recognized as a new world seaplane distance record.
Crew: 4
Range: 2,550 miles
Power Plant: Two geared 475 hp Packard 1A-2500
Weight:
Empty - 8,995 lbs
Gross - 18,125 lbs
Dimensions:
Wing area - 1,217 sq ft
Wing span - 72 ft 10 in
Length - 49 ft 2 in
Height - 16 ft 6 in
BuNo: PN-9 A6878
"We're on time, we're on budget. We're within budget," Capt. James Downey declared during an interview earlier this month. "We're hitting the milestones within the program."Getting all the systems in all the modules to work well with each other will be the hard part, but they've done a lot of advance work already:
The Zumwalt's astounding completion level of 60 percent at keel-laying - once one of the earliest moments in a ship's construction - is a byproduct of the modern, modular building methods, Downey said.
"The ship is built in modules," he explained, including ever-larger elements known as ultra units. "When the first ultra unit is complete, that's when keel-laying is."
The forward midbody module, which includes the guns, weighs more than 4,000 tons - larger than a littoral combat ship, Downey said. The modules feature a high degree of outfitting, including smaller details like wiring, pipes, and control consoles to main and auxiliary propulsion engines and missile launchers.
As the ultra units are joined together, the Zumwalt will rapidly take on more of its ultimate shape. The composite deck structure, weighing more than 1,000 tons and now more than 75 percent complete, is expected to be barged from Mississippi to Maine in late spring, and the Zumwalt is scheduled to be launched in July 2013. Initial delivery is set for 2014, with completion of the combat system to follow in 2015.
A DDG 1000 power plant at the Navy's Land-Based Test Site in Philadelphia conducted a successful, full-scale power test in May.
"We tested the complete propulsion system in local control," Downey said. "It pretty much passed with flying colors," although some test equipment needed upgrading. "We made no changes to any of our [ship] equipment."
The advanced induction motor (AIM) - heart of the integrated power system - "has performed very well," Downey said. "It met all the requirements at land-based testing. It exceeded the requirements."
Officers and crew of the DDG 1000 have already been reporting for duty, Downey said, with several members spending time this summer underway on British Type 45 destroyers, which also use AIM engines.
"We're learning what to expect out of the system," Downey said. "It's good for them to see a working system out at sea."
Tests of BAE's 155mm advanced gun system and its associated long-range land-attack projectile also have progressed "very well," Downey said. Two successful live-fire tests were held Aug. 30 at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., against live targets, which were hit at a range of 45 nautical miles. The round, he said, is hitting targets within "40-ish inches" of where it's aimed, against a requirement of 20-30 meters.
DefenseAlert - 09/16/2011 The Defense Department is facing a potential $3 billion bill to modify early production Joint Strike Fighter aircraft to final configuration, roughly an additional $10 million for each fighter jet that is not accounted for by Pentagon unit-cost estimates, according to the Senate Appropriations Committee.This is the same Committee using 'Concurrency' as a red herring to recommend holding back the F-35 production ramp up discussed here. In fact, this 'story' is part and parcel with the 'concurrency' angle. Other tidbits:
...The Senate panel, in a report accompanying its mark of the Pentagon's fiscal year 2012 spending bill, estimates this cost by comparing the Air Force's experience developing the F-22 with the F-35.
..."Based on F-22 experience, a common configuration modification for the Joint Strike Fighter program would cost approximately $10 million per aircraft resulting in a $1.67 billion to $2.29 billion modification program," the Senate panel's report states
...These costs are in addition to the $771.2 million in additional costs -- disclosed this summer by the Pentagon -- to reconfigure the first three F-35 production lots. Combined, the Senate panel estimates the total retrofit bill could reach $3 billion.
No doubt in the future, if it is found that the costs of running a fighter factory in first gear for two more years exceeds the total lifecycle cost (or APUC for that matter) impacts that would have been incurred if the conventional alternative (of proceeding with increasing production rates and retrofitting fielded early aircraft) had been followed, that the good Senator (D-Hi) will be the first to admit the strategy was wrong and that he and the other Senators will be the ones to blame for the cost increases. I know that on the other hand, if such a delay does actually save total costs (vs, just playing a convenient ricebowl to plunder for the short term) and has no negative impact on the same costsI will be happy to publically proclaim I was 'wrong'I won't bother with the preliminary back and forth and the early Ad Hominem but the thread rapidly got to EngeCon posting:
that wasn't even an ad homenim. i asked a question and expressed an opinion. once again the communication process has broken down. also according to learning curve theory it doesn't matter if the lot quantity increases, as long as there is not a production break. so no matter how much you misapply learning theory, you can't blame this on the Senate. the learning effects will not be achieved for a variety of other reasons, such as the unstable production configuration and inevitable obsolescence. there are probably some great introduction to logic and proof classes at your local community college which might give you an appreciation for axioms of math, science, and engineering. i'm sure if we keep repeating the educational process with you, sooner or later something may stick.The only thing worth noting in this comment was the part about 'Production Break' and 'Learning Curve'. This was funny: A guy trying to 'count coup' while demonstrating a lack of in depth knowledge of the point he was trying to use to refute my argument. I followed with:
Re: Fallacious Ad Hominem – I take the general and to-date unsupported “your obfuscated, hubristic, and biased views” as a personal (not to mention unsupported to the point of nonsensical) attack.I don't know why, but I expected EngeCon to at least do a little research on the "Anderlohr Method" before he came back, but nooooooooo:
Re: ‘Production Break’ observation. Interesting, but your offhand dismissive use of the term indicates you probably have no idea that a ‘Production Break’(as the term relates to Learning Curves) does not have to be temporal or complete. In fact, your answer reeks of a ‘numerical’ and not ‘operational’ awareness of ‘Learning Curve’ [ I would note that it comes over as arrogance in your own ignorance, but that would mean bringing up “Hybris” again and I’ve noted how that seems to have rankled you some. So I won’t mention it. ] Now go back and try to conceptualize how many of the five categories of ‘Production Breaks’ as identified within the Anderlohr Method are relevant to an operation on the scale of the F-35 and the planned expansion to the manufacturing effort (scope) and speed (production rates). Hint: All of them are relevant.
Re the rest of your poor scratchings: Infantile projection
what is your reference for definition of the term 'production break'? then show how what has happened in the past or in the future indicates that a production break has or will occurr. Congress is not at fault for any production breaks. i understand the frustration in the Appropriations process, but in the F-35's case, Congress has faithfully appropriated billions of dollars into this caper per year, and the program should still be expending dollars that were obligated in past years. the whole experience is ANOTHER lesson in how foolish the concurrency approach is. you need to prove you are ready for production, via a MS C decision, before starting LRIP. what's the status of that DAB to rebaseline the program??Aside from the obvious fact that EngeCon hasn't gotten the latest word on Concurrency yet, and aside from attempting to shift the discussion back to the Milestone BS meme he so desperately clings to at the end...there's not much here. I obliged him with a reference, and would have posted at DT all of what I'm about to post here, except it would have had to be broken into about 6-7 unconnected comments, subject to cherry picking. In 'replay' what I wrote at DT was:
Have you noticed that you often begin with challenging an assertion by asking for ‘support’, then attempt to preemptively refute (poison the well) any support provided in response? And before you have ANY idea what the response will be? Interesting. I assumed you would have just Googled up the ‘Anderlohr Method’. From the second or third hit on my computer: https://acc.dau.mil/adl/en-US/30391/file/5384/Learning%20Curve%20Workshop%20Production%20Breaks.pdfWhat I WANTED to post in addition to the link was the actual categories of "Production Breaks":
RE: MSC/DAB & other formalities. I'll refer readers to our earlier dance :http://elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2011/07/deliver-us-from-bean-counters.html
George Anderlohr…. divided all learning lost, by an organization, due to a break in production, into five categories:
"1. Personnel Learning: In this area , the physical loss of personnel, either through regular movement or layoff, must be determined. The company's personnel records can usually furnish evidence on which to establish this learning loss. The percentage of learning lost by the personnel retained on other plant projects must also be ascertained. These people will lose their physical dexterity and familiarity with the product and the momentum of repetition." [From my next door neighbor who works on the F-35 production line, I know that LM is (again) already shuffling key people around into less desirable (read: dirty or at night) work because the production ramp-up is being delayed (again). They are trying to retain the experience and skills of as many less-senior but more ‘F-35 experienced’ line workers as they can--in anticipation of possible layoffs which, given it is a unionized workforce, would otherwise be ‘out the door’ as the more senior ‘protected’ mechanics and electricians are retained.]
"2. Supervisory Learning: Once again, a percentage of supervisory personnel will be lost as a result of regular movement. Management will make a greater effort to retain this higher caliber personnel, so the physical loss, in the majority of cases, will be far less than in the area of production personnel. However the supervisory personnel retained will lose the overall familiarity with the job so that the guidance they can furnish will be reduced. In addition, because of the loss of production personnel, the supervisor will have no knowledge, so necessary in effective supervision, of the new hires and their individual personalities and capabilities. [We should suspect this will particularly affect those people who were involved in planning the ramp up of production itself, some of whom will start the replan, and others who will now go fight other fires]
"3. Continuity of Productivity: This relates to the physical positioning of the production line, the relationship of one work station to another, and the location of lighting, bins, parts, and tools within the work station. It also includes position adjustment to optimize the individual needs. In addition, a major factor affecting this area is the balance line or the work in process build-up. Of all the elements of learning, the greatest initial loss is suffered in this area." [How much additional production infrastructure had LM and (hundreds of?) suppliers already put into place to support the coming ramp up and will now have to work around it or set it aside? How much will have to change (do over) if the profile of the ‘ramp up’ has to change (steeper or slower – still a change)? How much more expensive will it be to work through the ramp up in later years, for all the categories and for all the suppliers?]
"4. Methods: This area is least affected by a production break. As long as method sheets [now computerized work instructions- see below] are kept on file, learning can never be completely lost. However, drastic revisions to the method sheets may be required as a result of a change from soft to hard tooling." [ not just ‘soft’ to ‘hard’ tooling – any tooling change driven by scale. BTW I disagree with this being ‘least affected’. The effect is dependent upon the availability of people who understood the intent of the instructions when they were written.]Thus it is shown that when the term 'Production Breaks' is used in reference to 'Learning Curves' within the "Anderlohr Method" (the most widely used application in aerospace as far as I know) it does not just mean cessasion and restart of activity, but applies to any disruption in the current production system that renders prior knowledge ineffective of less effective for future application. As
"5. Special Tooling: New and better tooling is a major contributor to learning. In relating loss in the tooling area, the major factors are wear, physical misplacement and breakage. An additional consideration must be the comparison of the short run or so called soft tooling to long run or hard tooling and the effect of the transition from soft to hard tooling." [Unlike relatively simple manufacturing products, like a microchip or even some F-35 subsystem components, scaling up the tooling for high rate production involves more than just cloning a production line or station. Scaling up the F-35 production will involve reconfiguring and rearranging new tooling. I believe the process of transitioning to full rate tooling has already started with LM subs (remember reading about it in the last year someplace). Will they have to change their processes again to efficiently use the tooling at the lower rate?]
'The definitions presented by Anderlohr have been modified and expanded, since 1969, to accommodate today’s manufacturing environment. For example, some of today’s modern factories operate in a “paperless environment” where method sheets are no longer used. However, these factories normally produce all of their shop instructions on computer files, these computer files sometimes have the same “ability” to get lost as their paper counterparts. Therefore the Methods portion of learning may deal with these computer files (i.e. lost files, changes to files due to new equipment, etc.)."
"We recommend a $695 million reduction to the Joint Strike Fighter program. We continue to strongly support this program and believe that the F-35 is showing progress since it was restructured last year. However, excessive concurrency in development and production still exists. The test program is only 10 percent complete, yet the request continues to ramp up production of aircraft in fiscal years 2012 and 2013. We recommend maintaining production at the fiscal year 2011 levels for two more years in order to limit out year cost growth. For each aircraft we build this early in the test program, we will have to pay many millions in the future to fix the problems that are identified in testing.Instead of employing a teaser ‘let’s see what happens next’ approach, how about we ask ourselves ‘What might this (Senate decision and rationale offered) really mean?”
Our results (located at [link fixed by me], based on examining 28 programs across all Services, are very similar to those of the Congressional Budget Office and RAND [example] studies with one surprising exception: While from a purely statistical point of view we found that the relationship between both planned and actual concurrency and cost growth was very weak, in both cases, there seems to be a “sweet spot” of about 30 percent concurrency. That is, programs that plan on spending 30 percent of RDT&E funds while concurrently spending procurement funds actually experience the lowest average cost growth. Similarly, those programs that actually do spend about 30 percent of RDT&E funds while concurrently spending procurement dollars, even when not originally planned, also experience lower cost growth. Furthermore, programs with planned or actual levels of concurrency below 30 percent experienced higher cost growth than those with higher levels of concurrency. In other words, lower levels of planned or actual concurrency were actually worse than higher levels of concurrency. This is the complete opposite of what many in the acquisition community believe. We speculate that lower levels of concurrency may expose the program to higher levels of external changes.At the end of the AT&L article, the authors Donald Birchler, Gary Christle, and Eric Groo close with the following:
It's bad management because it's not on time or on budget and, so far, it doesn't work! I'm not sure what else you need in order to be convinced.Of which, given the ground rules were clearly stated, prompted my reply:
Invalid Claim! [;-) (and you provide no definition of, much less evidence supporting 'doesn't work')Then Joe C. responded with:
"Doesn't work" meaning it was banned from flying until recently. That fits my definition of "doesn't work"! :)
I work in software, so I'm well aware of how people tend to underestimate the time it takes to get things done. We're all very optimistic creatures at heart, I guess. I think some of that is what's going on in the F-35 program. It's also a result, as I've said before, of our Pentagon always wanting the newest, shiniest, most advanced toy instead of being satisfied with an incremental upgrade.
Do you know what TRLs are? I ask because buying a weapon system isn't like buying a commercial product. EVERY weapon system sufficiently advanced to be worth developing and fielding with an expected operational life of 20-30-40 years requires the same effort and hits pretty much the same kinds of hurdles (depending on technologies involved). The F-35 program is actually doing better than a lot of its 'successful' predecessors, especially since it is really delivering 3 weapon systems in one. The only difference here is F-35 brand sausage is being made under a spotlight and rice bowls are threatened. The decision to first launch and then develop a new weapon system has been most definitely "requirements-pull" since the end of the Cold War so if an 'incremental' advancement was all that was needed, that is all that is pursued. Biggest problem with the incremental over existing is that on the modern battlefield, if you aren't low observable and connected, you are dead. As to 'software development' if we developed software like the commercial sector, we'd only need half the airbases - because most planes would just make smoking holes enroute to the next base. Kind’a hard on the Beta testers.
SMSgt Mac,
So are you stating that because the F-35 is doing better than a lot of it's 'successful' predecessors there is no problem here? I notice you put successful in quotes as if you don't believe these unnamed predecessors were successful. If they weren't successful than even if the F-35 is better how does that serve as an argument that everything is fine with the F-35. Sounds like you are making the argument that because bad isn't worst, than it is good. If they were successful during deployment does that justify all the problems in development? Is it possible for a bad process to still produce viable results? I think all of this "history as a standard" and "Not worst, therefore good" argument stuff fails to take into account that the political climate is completely different today and that is the real deciding factor in this projects survival.
SMSgt Mac,
Your pro-F-35 arguments suffer from the following fallacies. I've included single line summaries of many of your arguments. IF you feel I am unfairly summing up your arguments please direct me to evidence that I am not being fair to you.
Appeal to Tradition - this is the way military projects always work http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-tradition.html
Biased Sample - Because the F-35 program isn't as bad as these projects it is great http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/biased-sample.html Appeal to novelty -- The F-35 is the greatest best thing therefore it must continue
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-novelty.html
Burden of Proof -- Detractors must prove the F-35 is not the best plane in the world for it's job http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/burden-of-proof.html
Given the space limitations on DT, I will Fisk your post at my place and let you know when it happens here (No earlier than Sunday- late). It would be earlier, but I have other pressing commitments this weekend. Kudos for the attempt and willingness to be specific and avoid logical fallacies, but unfortunately you employed several above. As a prequel -- think about the phrase 'it does not follow' as it may apply to what you've posted.
Thanks for the reply, and I have great respect for your service, however since I am only summarizing your arguments and asking you to clarify I think you will have a very difficult time proving that my logic is not sound. Asking you to clarify your position and pointing out your logical fallacies can only be right or wrong, not a logical fallacy. I haven't even started to argue against your points. Only point out that many of your arguments don't hold up to the standard you have selected. The only point I have made here that might be considered an argument is that you are not taking into account the current political climate which is very different from 20-30 years ago. There is no logical fallacy there-- I haven't even asserted my own opinion. In fact logic will not help you in understanding the current political climate.
….
By the way in your post can you please answer my challenge that if I have misrepresented your position you provide evidence to show this. I am a clarity over agreement kind of guy. I don't care if we agree but I really don't want to slime you.
It does not require much imagination to perceive that perhaps complexity in any one of the three software, hardware, and operational/environment factors have the potential to fuel the complexity of the other two, and that this often results in an even more rapid increase in complexity of the overall system. Given that the overall complexity of modern systems already preclude the possibility of ever having enough time or money, even with automation, to test for 100% coverage 1 , the importance of bounding the scope and effort of an FMET test program will only become more important as systems become even more complex.1 Automated Software Testing, Dustan Rashka & Paul, 1999, pp.35-36, Addison-Wesley ]
In many situations, one side has the burden of proof resting on it. This side is obligated to provide evidence for its position. The claim of the other side, the one that does not bear the burden of proof, is assumed to be true unless proven otherwise. The difficulty in such cases is determining which side, if any, the burden of proof rests on. In many cases, settling this issue can be a matter of significant debate. In some cases the burden of proof is set by the situation. For example, in American law a person is assumed to be innocent until proven guilty (hence the burden of proof is on the prosecution). As another example, in debate the burden of proof is placed on the affirmative team.By either standard, the “Burden of Proof” in my challenge is on the CRITICS of the F-35 (plane and program).
A modest proposal. How about one of you (or all of you) working from the philosophical position that the F-35 suffers from 'bad management' actually cite an example of same?
Please post as a separate post instead of a reply. It is a long weekend and if the F-35 is as poorly managed as those asserting it is, we should be able to run up the count to a new DT record for our hosts!
There are only three criteria for a claim to warrant a response other than "Invalid Claim!":
1. Single sentence description of the "bad management" decision/action.
2. Identification of those responsible (names are best) for the "bad management" to at least a) the Government (DoD office or equivalent and higher) or Corporate/Industry leadership level responsible--for 'actors' OUTSIDE the program, and/or b) Identification of those responsible (position or name) WITHIN the program.
3. Single sentence description of WHY it was a bad management event/action.
Enjoy!
