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| (Photo by Darrin Russel/Lockheed Martin) |
- Full Block 3F mission systems development and testing cannot be completed by May 2017, the date reflected in the most recent Program Office schedule, which is seven months later than the date planned after the 2012 restructure of the program. Although the program has recently acknowledged some schedule pressure and began referencing July 31, 2017, as the end of SDD flight test, that date is unrealistic as well. Instead, the program will likely not finish Block 3F development and flight testing prior to January 2018,...
• Insufficient time and resources to conduct all required weapons delivery accuracy (WDA) events. The program completed a surge of weapons test events in August and is analyzing the results. While some of the events appear to have been successful, several WDAs unsurprisingly had significant issues that either required control room intervention or the employment of the weapon was likely unsuccessful. Despite making some progress, the program still has not completed the full set of planned test events for Block 3F weapons in the TEMP, with 13 WDAs remaining, excluding the multiple gun scoring events, which must also be completed. Due to the limited time and funding remaining in SDD, the program has prioritized completing testing of new and deficient Block 3F mission systems capabilities over completing the remaining WDAs. While completion of Block 3F mission systems is necessary, the WDAs are also an integral part of successfully completing required development and adequate testing of full Block 3F capabilities. Each of the planned WDA events is an essential end-to-end test of the full fire-control chain. Conducting all of the WDAs is the only way to discover problems that otherwise will be realized in operational test and/or combat. For example, one of the recent AIM-120 missile WDA events required control room intervention to direct the pilot when to launch, as there were no shoot cues or launch zone indications displayed to the pilot due to an outdated AIM-120 missile attack model within the mission systems software. Due to their importance and the distinct differences among them, all of the planned WDA events must be completed during DT; otherwise, these events will have to be completed before or during IOT &E, which will delay discovery of deficiencies and the completion of IOT&E while adding to its cost.
“This was kind of a cleanup, or a closeout, of (System Development and Demonstration). It’s the closeout of JSF developmental test for Block 3F, which is a big deal because it’s for Air Force IOC, and Navy IOC,” he said….
…“I like to think of these as the last for Developmental Test,” he said. “This is like our graduation exercise before we hand the aircraft off to the operational test organizations so they can go prove it’s ready for combat. That’s very significant for us.”…
…There is a single WDA event remaining for 3F, which marks the completion for all three variants and will pave the way to the declaration of IOC for all F-35s.
Now, If you are a journalist and EVER cited DOT&E as if they knew WTF they were talking about, then take a large mallet and apply it forcefully to your forehead in penance. Ye shall be known by thy flat face.
What's the lesson here? There is a reason this quote was displayed in the entryway to ASD HQ at Wright Patterson back in the 80s-Early 90s.
4 comments:
My inference is that DOT&E is going to be radically reformed or abolished.
https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/Section-901-FY-2017-NDAA-Report.pdf
"Now, If you are a journalist and EVER cited DOT&E as if they knew WTF they were talking about, then take a large mallet and apply it forcefully to your forehead in penance."
Whats a better system than DOT&E evaluation? Are the military pilots flying for them lying? They arent journalists right?
you hurl ad hominem around like the fan boys.
OObilly,
“DOT&E evaluation” is conducted by compiling program reported and tracked program data. 99+% of DOT&E are beancounting auditors with no - or worse yet - ‘stale’ consequential knowledge of key weapon system testing and program priorities. They collate the data as competent civil servant functionaries, but do not write the reports. >1% of DOT&E are political hacks with a questionable grasp of the reality that all programs manage risk, some risk is acceptable, and that risk cannot ever be eliminated even when the program is complete. That >1% write reports which the charter calls for identifying and listing program risk, challenges, and progress but use those reports to promote their own inexpert opinions as fact. Outside of Vulnerability Testing DOT&E could be said to have responsibility for the testing or design of testing NOTHING. They don’t even put Vulnerability testing in its proper perspective (they ignore/marginalize Susceptibility-the other half of Survivability), but present their findings as if they were ALL that mattered.
They ‘approve’ service/program OT&E test plans but write nothing. They have no pilots who fly, but cherry pick comments from service pilots who do and frame them in the most negative light possible or overlay their own uninformed opinions on pilot input and assign meaning to them.
They are 99+% redundant to the development and test of weapon systems but 100% necessary to those who politicize same. The DOT&E organization was created in a spasm of post-Vietnam Faux Military Reform sentimentality, initially staffed at the top by the Faux Reformers, and subsequently led by defense ‘intellectuals’ with marginal and simplistic views on the subject of complexity who have been approved or endorsed by the same posturing Faux Reform crowd.
Born on the noise arising from a skewed view of what would be best described as a philosophical disagreement in test approaches on an isolated Army program at one test facility, it has been a bane to program managers, and service users DoD-wide since its political creation. It is the crown jewel of the Faux Reform (Anti-Defense) idiots on the Left: the end of DOT&E would be the best thing that’s happened for National Security since the Berlin Wall fell. Services and programs would still do OT&E to the end-users satisfaction without the DOT&E at lower cost, and heck of a lot less drama.
Until the DOT&E is reformed or disbanded, IMO its major contribution to Defense is making the GAO look competent in comparison. GAO must also realize this, as you would not believe the contortions the GAO went through to rationalize the DOT&E's value. GAO-DOT&E: A self-licking ice cream cone if there ever was one.
You may surmise I ran out of cheeks to turn on this topic many programs ago. Mocking what the DOT&E does—and they definitely do not behave as if they know anything of import in doing it is not Ad Hominem. And when I DO use Ad Hominem, it is never ‘fallacious’—because that would make it ‘wrong’. (http://elementsofpower.blogspot.com/2006/02/cautionary-note-on-civility.html)
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