F-16 and F-35 parallels: Boy Reporter Gets Few Facts Right, Story Wrong

Hat Tip: 'tbarlow' @ F-16.net

This is just too funny and too easy to debunk for me to pass up. I just gotta point out the stupid involved. Kyle Mizokami tripped over a thread in Reddit and built a nice 'on the one hand, but on the other hand' F-35 "narrative" for Popular Mechanics that is so lame it answers the question as to why most media writers aren't paid as much as they think they're worth. It is a shame too, because with really very little research, and demonstration of a minimal understanding of economics--specifically the 'time value' of money and proper use of deflators -- he could have contributed significantly to killing the false narrative that the F-35 program is 'plagued by (fill in the blank)'. Instead, he tries, and fails to make the F-35 look bad, using numbers that when applied correctly only make the point that the F-35 program, and the problems that have been encountered are in no way unique.

Here's the PM story:

A New York Times newspaper article describes a beleaguered American fighter program enduring delays, escalating costs, and technical problems. Another article about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter no doubt, right? Nope. It's an article from 1977 about the F-16 Fighting Falcon.  

The F-16 was the original multinational fighter. Developed by the United States with Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway as partners, the fighter was designed to be an agile, lightweight, daytime fighter to replace aging fighters such as the F-5 Freedom Fighter and the F-104 Starfighter. At $6,091,000 per unit—$27.1 million when adjusted for inflation—it was also supposed to be inexpensive.  

Many of the F-16's past problems are mirror images of the issues we see in the F-35. According to the article, the Air Force expected the F-16's research and development costs rose by some $7 billion to reach $13.8 billion by 1986. Adjusted for inflation, that's $54.7 billion in today's dollars. F-35 R&D costs, on the other hand, are estimated at $107 billion dollars to date.  

Like the F-35, the F-16's problems arose from technological issues and design challenges. The fly-by-wire mechanism of the F-16, in which an aerodynamically unstable but highly maneuverable aircraft was tamed by computers to keep it flying, was an expensive problem that was eventually solved. Like the F-35, the F-16 had problems with its engine and also had to be modified to placate U.S. allies who wanted a fighter capable of air-to-ground missions, a real multi-role fighter.  

Still, as similar as the problems between these two planes are, the F-35's problems are much more intense. The F-35 was originally slated to cost $50 million apiece—nearly twice the original cost of the F-16 at today's prices—but the three versions of the plane currently run anywhere from $112 to $120 million each. The F-16 encountered months of delays, but the F-35 A/B/C models will, on average, be delayed half a decade. 

Yes, America and her allies have been down this road before, but this time it is a lot rockier.

First, the 'costs' narrative whereby Mizokami attempts to make it look like the F-35 is MUCH worse than it's predecessor....when it is not that different at all.

RE: The F-16's “$6,091,000 per unit—$27.1 million when adjusted for inflation”.

I don’t know where he got the $27.1M inflation unit cost value (though given the depth of research he shows I suspect he just found a number) but it strongly correlates with Contemporary Opportunity Costs between 1976-77 and 2015. In terms of a project’s Economy Cost (relative share of the GDP used: the correct figure for 'projects') that 1977 F-16 unit cost would equal $58.2 million in 2015 dollars. [Note: Calculators I used for the interested are here.]

RE: “the Air Force expected the F-16's research and development costs rose by some $7 billion to reach $13.8 billion by 1986. Adjusted for inflation, that's $54.7 billion in today's dollars. F-35 R&D costs, on the other hand, are estimated at $107 billion dollars to date”

This is an odd disconnect from Mizokami's unit cost claim and the R&D figure he used for the F-16 DOES equal about $54B in 2015 Economy Cost, so who knows why the author came up with a lower number for the unit cost of the 1977 F-16 in “today’s dollars”. It was widely touted early in the F-35 program that we could develop three aircraft for the cost of 1.5 to 2 aircraft. Craptastic! RAND policy pieces non-withstanding, let's note that the estimated F-35 R&D costs that Mizokami uses (and we will watch these estimates as they become 'real') are running about 2 times that of the 1977-era's F-16 R&D costs when adjusted for inflation. That seems pretty reasonable, considering the F-16 is the cheapest of the 'Big three' aircraft designs (F-16, F-18C/D, AV-8B) whose capabilities drove the requirements for the F-35 design.


Even the F-16 as we know it today involves much more content and cost as Mizokami indirectly acknowledges than that of the 1977 F-16, so how about we consider all the additional ‘content’ the F-16 now has that it didn’t have in 1976-77? What was the later ‘development cost added’ that came with the later ‘value added’? We can't compare apples and apples directly, but we can get an idea about unit costs at least . In 2012, it was said that the F-16V would be less than half the “then” cost (Richard Aboulafia) of the F-35. Anyone remember the 2012 F-35 unit cost? It was $125-150M a copy depending upon who’s chart you’re looking at in whatever FY$’s being discussed. (see charts lifted from F-16.net's voluminous archives to the left) That would make the F-16V somewhere in the $60M-70M range in 2012 dollars. Guess what that is in 2015 dollars? Go ahead do the calculations). That's right. the F-16V would probably cost $70M-$80M (Economy Cost) in 2015 dollars. Note that also does not include the same 'content' that comes on an F-35.

 

 

 

People who rail about F-35 costs fall into one or more of three camps:

1. The willfully ignorant or gullible who’ll fall for anything.
2. The liars who have their own agendas
3. The internet's village idiots.

Enough about dollars. How about some history instead of Mizokami's stories?

RE: "Like the F-35, the F-16 had problems with its engine and also had to be modified to placate U.S. allies who wanted a fighter capable of air-to-ground missions, a real multi-role fighter."

1. The AF ALWAYS wanted the bells and whistles that were finally delivered with the first Block 30 F-16s. It wasn't the 'allies'. Don't believe me? Just look at what then recently retired Gen John Vogt who had commanded USAFE was saying about what was needed while the F-16 was in early development via a Euro 'Hit piece' from the period:

This rather poor documentary looks even sillier now than it did at the time, given the successes of the F-16 (airplane and program) that came soon thereafter. But it's value in illustrating how the stripped down version of the F-16, the day-time knife-fighter that the faux reformers wanted, was a politically driven, and not operational requirements-driven configuration endures. Of course, we could also simply review the history of the development to see the USAF always wanted more on board the F-16. This was made possible only by advancements in small electronics technology that then had to be developed for military aerospace. And TANSTAAFL.

RE: "The F-16 encountered months of delays, but the F-35 A/B/C models will, on average, be delayed half a decade."

'Delays' are a measure of the difference between 'time planned' and 'time scheduled' to reach some meaningful achievement. If you want to compare the F-16 development with the F-35's, then the baseline F-35 Block 3 will be achieved two years faster (with about 1600 fewer aircraft produced) than the F-16's Baseline Block 30. The biggest difference between the F-16 and F-35 programs is the differences in size of the initial 'brass ring' being sought.   

Finally, a minor nit to pick about the F-16 so-called 'engine problems'. If Misokami cared to do some research, he'd find that the problems never really affected the F-16 like the F-15, partially because of the installation, and partially because the F-15 was the lead user o the PW F100.

Misokami's story could have been a good one. In any case, if Mizokami read a little more widely, he would have known about this part of F-16 development 'history' over NINE Years ago.

Yes, that's right. All has proceeded as I have foreseen.

Law of Unintended Consequences and F-35 H8ers.

Hillarity ensues.

My apologies for not posting more, but I’m swamped with higher priorities and will continue to be for a while yet. There’s been a lot going on that I’d like to really get into the weeds on with some in depth posts. Those can sit for a bit without harm and I notice the internet seems to do just fine with most of the ‘news’ without me having to add my 2 cents worth. It does seem others often have things covered pretty well.

But here’s a little story breaking that I haven’t seen anyone pick up on yet….and it is just too delightful to let lay unnoticed and unloved.

Flashback to the A-10 Fanbois Faction whining up a delay in the A-10 ramp-down to retirement.

Then remember how the AF bluntly stated this delay will impact the F-35 by hindering the training-up of the maintenance force. (Those bodies gotta’ come from somewhere, y’ know.)

Recall how there’s a whole bowl of granola (what ain’t ‘flakes’ is ‘fruits and nuts’) trying to ‘stop’ the Vermont National Guard “Green Mountain Boys” from transitioning from the F-16 to the F-35. That Sprey-hosting crowd is currently pursuing a lawsuit that has so far soundly lost every court challenge, but they keep appealing their ‘lost’ cause. They even snookered a local city into helping subsidize their antics and they just asked for and received even MORE ‘joe public’ money. (How do most of the citizens feel about that ongoing rent-seeking, eh?

Enter last week’s unsurprising announcement that the F-35 will be based at Eielson AFB (well OK, many Canadians were probably shocked because they’ve been told for years that the F-35--or any single engine fighter--isn’t any good at operating over vast expanses of cold nothingness). Buried on metaphorical Page 2 of that Eielson announcement has the AF accelerating the deployment of F-35s to the Green Mountain Boys at their Burlington VT ANG base.
 
This, as you can imagine has the ‘Stop the F-35’ snowflakes in a very unhappy place.

So why is the AF accelerating the F-35 basing in VT?

“The accelerated timeline is intended to help the Air Force address a shortage of active-duty fighter aircraft maintenance workers, officials said.” (link)

Like I said, the bodies have to come from somewhere.

If the AF can’t transition the A-10s out of the fleet at the needed rate, that pretty much leaves the F-16’s having to speed up their conversion pace to make up for it.

Bottom Line: 'A-10-forever' Anti-JSF faction has hosed a 'NIMBY luddite' Anti-JSF faction.

Sweeeeeeeeeet.

BTW: The Green Mountain boys don’t fly out of a backwater grass strip in some idyllic mountain meadow. They fly out of the very nice and relatively busy Burlington Int’l Airport, where jetliners fly in and out with far greater frequency than the ANG does it's F-16s and soon to be F-35s.

Twisting F-35 Factoids to Spread Untruth? I Smell POGO

The F-35 Ejection Seat Non-Story Self-Implodes on its Own Ignorance and/or Deception

Alternate Subtitle: “Do I now have to start checking my Twitter feed more than once a month or so?”

Back on the 15th, the faux military ‘reform’ F-35 Ejection Seat narrative got a boost in circulation when it hit the Political website ‘Roll Call’. The author clearly didn’t understand what was or was not important on the subject of ejection seats, and quite frankly, the story RC was pedaling wouldn’t hold up to even the most casual review by anyone who has ever been AIS (A**-in-Seat) in one while “slipping the surly bonds”… or worked on or around them while on the ground…or worked/trained in aircraft safety or reliability. When the meme first emerged in a DefenseNews story on October 1, I thought at the time that the story’s timing and meme might be a POGO aka ‘Straus Military Reform’ disinformation piece. Given the machinations to keep the ‘story’ going in spite of its idiocy being proffered, I am now even more convinced of same.

This post WAS going to be a straightforward point-by-point ‘fisking’ of the faux F-35 seat story as breathlessly reported at Roll Call, but the story became so bizarre in the spreading of it—and the speed of it--that the story had pretty much fisked itself before I could take the time to do it for you.

Does Ignorance or Ideology Inhibit Defense Reporting?

Yes. Next question?

I didn’t (still don’t) have time to completely disabuse all of the people who reported all of this drivel as ‘revelation’. At most it could be called a ‘realization’...that those reporting are ignoramuses when it comes to system and flight safety, fighter aircraft design, risk management, and apparently ‘technology’ in general. 

The author of the Roll Call piece linked above got the bit in his teeth over the other ‘story’ linked to above that was first written up by an seemingly earnest 'noob' at Defense News named Lara Seligman and a guy named Aaron Mehta.
Mehta is someone I’ve had on my ‘faux military reform’ radar for a little while. Mehta’s moved from being someone who produces shaky policy pieces for a so-called ‘good government’ non-profit attempting to influence defense policy to now 'reporting' often on non-profit policy pieces posing as news in defense media.


Where's Mehta fit in? Where does Donnelly? We'll have to just keep watching for now.

 The creative use, abuse, and misinterpretation of what the facts in hand (and those missing) ‘mean’ are what makes the whole F-35 Ejection Seat/Helmet ‘story’ reek of the typical output that comes from the POGO/Straus ‘P.A.C.E.’ generator. While one might get the same writing result that we've seen simply by not knowing WTF one is writing about, one wouldn’t then subsequently double-down on the stupidity when called out on it in the comments. If you count the incremental updates to DefenseNews articles along with the subsequent new stories there and elsewhere, you could make a case for the faux military reform message machine having ‘triple-quadruple-downed’ as the participants have progressively dug their rhetorical heels in on ‘THE STORY!’.

The Roll Call 'Story'

As good a place as any to begin deconstructing the idiocy spreading around the web is with John M. Donnelly’s 19 October Roll Call piece. My favorite hyperbolic bit in the Roll Call ‘story’, one that pretty much defines the nature of the 'journalistic' problem we are dealing with was:

“…pilots are rotated backward into a position where they face all but certain death from the rocketing parachute's force snapping their heads…”.

Really?

Ahem. Philosophical Fighter Safety Tip O’ the Day:

IF you are ejecting, you are already facing “all but certain death”.

Anyhooo… I tweeted in a couple of places that this story smells like POGO, and then posted this comment over at F-16.net:

I may find the time to go into more detail on this someplace else, but there are several notable things about this story, and none of them have to do with what is being said right now.
The first thing is that none of the numbers being tossed about indicate what the DIFFERENCE is between legacy (including ACES II) systems and the F-35's MB seat. ALL ejections have serious risks involved which is why they generally only occur when the aircrew determine the risks of staying onboard are greater. 

The second thing is that the some of the lower concern weights are outside ANY measured probability of survivability for ANY legacy systems. Those seats were for a much narrower percentage of body shapes and sizes.
The third thing is that unlike legacy systems, the F-35 seat is designed for a 'kinder-gentler' ejection to make the seat safer for women of ANY weight at ALL ejection speeds. The greater S-curve of the female spine makes it more prone to 'snapping' with the more violent extraction of older seats. So this also means the average male pilot cannot leave the plane as fast as he used to even if it is more advisable....because EQUALITY!

The last thing I have time to talk about here is that this non-story had all the feel of a POGO fueled P.A.C.E. attack. And I suspect it now even more after checking the self-licking ice cream cone at play in Donnelly's Twitter feed.
Only thing missing is the likely e-mail, phone call or text that POGO's "Straus" operation fed him in the first place. I created a hashtag for this kind of crap. If you tweet (I've only played with it) and find this story elsewhere, retweet with #SmellsLikePOGO or #SmellsLikePogo (I covered both punctuations JIC).

I had tweeted Roll Call’s Donnelly piece thusly:

Little did I suspect at the time that Donnelly would even bother replying with:

Which I only know about from the e-mail notification. For by the time I noticed the email and followed the feed, Donnelly's response had-- oddly enough--'morphed'.

It’s always nice to have context to subvert an anti-defense faux-reform meme handed to you with the meme.

My first thought from the initial RC response was: Hey! I know that statistic—I HAVE the report it came from (a DoD IG report #2015-090).

My second thought was:

He should probably have somebody explain it to him. Somebody who knows something this time.

The IG report referenced in the tweet that was dumped down in the memory-hole  IS EXTREMELY helpful, but probably NOT in the spirit in which it was invoked.

The report has some great background and references, most of them are publicly accessible. This stuff is useful for several reasons addressing problems with the false 'F-35-Ejection-Seat-as-Greek-Tragedy' narrative in several areas.

First,collectively the documents are of great benefit to help us scope the magnitude of the ‘Ejection Safety’ question itself.

Second, the report clearly identifies the expected performance and ejection limitations of existing ACESII and NACES seat systems for a variety of aircraft when using helmets with just some of the devices and capabilities that are already built into the F-35’s helmet. Per the report, the ejection safety performance of existing systems (Pgs. 14-16) turns out be at best equal and in some ways worse than the F-35 system with the F-35 helmet design: as it now exists.

Legacy systems cannot now, nor have they EVER been able to support use by an aircrew member weighing less than 136lb, so the fact that the F-35 system won’t either at the moment--while it is still in development--is hardly a scandal or even 'news'. It would be ‘news’ for about 5 minutes if it looked like it couldn’t be done, then I suppose someone could turn it into a ‘scandal’ if there was evidence of no wrongdoing being wrong-done.
But there isn’t any indication of same, so…………where’s the story? Going beyond the small aircrew restrictions common to all the modern systems, is there any 'there' there that makes the F-35 ejection system unnecessarily more dangerous than legacy systems? The DoD IG report provides some dreaded context ought to send the purveyors of Too Dangerous F-35 Ejection meme scurrying. Not that it will, just that it ought to.

Per the IG Report, one current ejection system combination (Pg. 17) has a lower maximum safe ejection speed limit than the F-35’s current limits. We also learn The Air Force is working on certifying a new ACES system that will probably be retrofitted into legacy systems, and quite frankly it wouldn’t surprise me to find out in the future that this faux ‘issue’ isn’t also being promoted in one way or another by unidentified promoters of the improved ACES system. Don't know if there are such forces at work, just know it wouldn't be surprising given the specifics of the DefenseNews unnamed 'expert' statements.

Third, the DoDIG report provides very important references where we find ejection survivability standards and it places terms like ‘serious risk’ and ‘unacceptable risk’ within some actual framework of meaning. Perhaps the most important key paragraph for slapping down this whole F-35 ejection risk scare-fest is found in the last paragraph of page 16 of the DoD IG report:

Using MIL‑STD‑882E, which defines the safety risk acceptance process and assuming that a major or fatal injury would be designated as a catastrophic consequence, the probability of occurrence would be identified as a 1D (catastrophic/remote). This level of risk is usually accepted by the program management office; in this case the aircraft Program Executive Offices.

The PEO for the F-35 has accepted the risks for pilots weighing more than 136lbs. Those familiar with the risk assessment and risk management processes can probably envision what the categorization "1D" actually stands for, but it will be helpful to place it in proper context for the rest of the world by showing why and how ejection risks and category "1D" are positioned among all the other categories within the System Safety construct.

Here is Mil-Std-882E (current release) Table 1: Severity Categories.

Since an ejection can ALWAYS result in ‘death’. There can only be ‘Cat 1 Severity’ involved in ANY ejection. So the next variable of interest for us is now within the probability side of the equation. As seen in Table 2 from the same Mil-Std-882E we find:

So then, what else COULD any ejection be other than a Level D category of probability?

Answer: There isn't one. 

Each ejection seat gets one ride outside the airplane, and each airplane only gets one ejection maximum in its lifetime (duh!). You can’t say you can assume it will never happen, and you sure as he** don’t design airplanes such that ejection system use would be ‘likely’.

Bottom Line: Category 1D is both the best you can do, and the worst you can accept for any ejection system.

This means there is always “Serious Risk” (as the Mil-Std-882E matrix above shows) involved in ANY use of any ejection system. Since it is always true, then it is hardly ‘news’ is it? (But 'Serious Risk!' DOES make a great punk-journalism hook for a politically fueled “hit piece”, eh?)

If you want to get really silly about it...

We could drill down even further into the data available, and ignore the fact that the F-35 ejection system is still being ‘worked’ to make it as safe as it possibly can be (the ‘requirement’ remember?). If one is so desperate to find an F-35 controversy that one would now debase themselves wallowing in the minutia and splitting hairs about WHERE in Category 1D the F-35 system currently lies relative to the legacy systems for pilots weighing more than 136 lbs, that’s easy enough to do to get an idea if they are at least of the same order of magnitude.

Assuming Gen Bogdan’s statement in testimony this week where he said that every time a pilot steps to the plane his risk of neck injury during ejection is “1 in 200,000” meant he was saying a serious neck injury or death would occur (he could have meant even minor neck injury), and that an average mission would be an hour long, this is how it stacks up against the AVERAGE legacy numbers the the DoD IG came up with for many different aircraft for the Navy (F-18 variants) and the Air Force (listed in report on page 6), then the comparison would look sort of like this:

There’s a lot of ambiguity in the figures in the report that prevent any direct comparison of history with any future risk calculations. First, these legacy numbers from the IG report are DoD IG calculations from 20 years of ejection history: they are the 'rates experienced' and not the product of a statistical analysis of all the risk factors involved.

We must also assert quite a few important caveats for using these numbers in any comparison to be made against future risks. Off the top of my head, some of them are:

1. The DoDIG numbers are ‘averages’ for many different aircraft/seat/headgear combinations, so there will be a range of values for each aircraft type by user within the average provided that we have no visibility into as to variations within the sample set and what if any correlations exist that would affect any comparison with other data. Just look at the variance between USAF and USN numbers for an example of variance even within the history.

2. The number of events--even over twenty years--is extremely small given the flight hours flown. If like a pair of dice is rolled for one outcome, even if the next ‘roll’ could be made under identical conditions, it probably would have quite a different numerical outcome, just not one that varied in any statistically-significant way. For an ejection, the factors are many, the combinations and permutations are astronomical. You should expect gross numbers to vary grossly.

3. The number of ejections that occurred over the past 20 years, the type and combinations of injuries and causes include those ‘induced’ for reasons other than the system performance, including human error, and all of them occurred in a combination of operational environments and event conditions that cannot be exactly replicated. The future will be different. We can only guesstimate by how much.     

4. These numbers are very small, and official risk analysis yields similarly other very small probabilities. Any time we are dealing with very small ‘long-tail’ probabilities it is important to remember the confidence in those same probabilities goes down. I suspect this is the reason that one comment from the Air Force System Lifecycle Management Center (pg. 33) that asserted the past could be used to predict future ejections was not included in the report (not just journalists have problems with statistics).

There's more but I don't want to belabor the point for the small return on the effort. Now remember we also don't know the actual number Bogdan was referring to with that nice round 1 in 200,000 probability, and what the actual boundaries are of the phenonema falling under his defintion. I suspect the number he used included minor neck injuries as well since he flatly stated 'neck injuries', but even assuming the worse, the round prediction number Bogdan used falls somewhere between the USN and USAF 'major injury or death' categories for all forms of injury that occurred in the past.

Conclusion: 
We just went through a lot of la-di-da navel gazing just to observe that 'yes the predictions and the history of risk appear to be about the in the same 6th significant digit order of magnitude'. Any bets there still will be people who will try to claim the variation between the two is 'significant'? There's always somebody. Tell them get all the numbers they need to actually conclude something, but until then to STFU.     

Bogdan Testimony Sidebar: FYI and BTW, the Congresswoman asking LtGen Bogdan the fumbling question about survival odds and who introduces the news 'report' claims that we've been dealing with here into the hearing is none other than the current POGO/Straus Military Reform Project director's last employer. Rep. Jackie Spieirs (D-CA) had employed Mandy Smithberger as a staffer just prior to Smithberger returning to POGO/Straus to take over the reins from good ole' Winslow Wheeler. That would appear to very nicely close the loop on the Scary F-35 Ejection story's purpose and intent. Just another reason this Smells Like POGO. I want to know more about the 'revolving door' operation being run out of POGO, don't you?

Fourth and finally, the DoD IG report itself, released just earlier this year, makes the VERY important and explicit point about not ‘evaluating’ the F-35’s ejection system at this time because it is still under development. A point that apparently NONE of the handwringers so far has thought was important enough to give them pause in their little 'group writing project'.

If Schrödinger had been a fighter pilot, we would have never heard about his cat.

Now, here we are in the warm-afterglow of the sub-committee hearings, and the meme being pedaled seems to have shifted to ‘journalists and progressive pols know more about ejection risk, and risk in general than those who do this stuff for a living'. Which is extremely funny. 

The critical phenomenon under examination is not the probability of an aircrew surviving an ejection once initiated. It is the probability of an aircrew surviving the mission, each and every mission. The probability of surviving each and every mission means surviving an ejection as a subset of the critical phenonemon must involve at least TWO* probabilities.  The first is the probability you will need to eject in the first place, and the second probability is the probability you will or will not survive the ejection event. The second probability is called a 'conditional' probability. Neither the probability of survival or probability of perishing during an ejection actually exist (estimates are not 'existence') unless and until the need for ejection occurs in the first place. 

It is irrational to focus on the risks incurred only after an ejection is underway and ignore the probability of the need to eject. The probability of survival depends on both, and each are meaningless (to the pilot the most) without the other.      

*We can eliminate considering all prior variables if we assume the pilot gets in the plane and takes off in his ejection seat-equipped airplane in the first place.  

Any risks that are calculated (versus known or proven) and weighed as being acceptable or unacceptable are just a contributor to some overall aircrew survivability standard that cannot be exceeded. Within the overall survivability standard, the requirement is merely to design the plane to make the ejection as safe as possible, because as we have already observed, it is impossible to make it ‘safe’ in terms the average man-on-the-street envisions safety.

Bonus material

History Charts
I repackaged some of the ejection safety history found in the DoD IG report, just so I could look at it from different angles. Note the wide variety of the internal data between AF and Navy operations in the report affected how I viewed some of the rollup stats here. No conclusions to draw from it, just observations. Enjoy.

About that DoD IG report...
The report itself is a product of Congressional hand-wringing over HMD(evice) equipped helmets. The DOD IG’s “Objective” was to determine:

“…whether DoD aircraft ejection seats meet aircrew survivability and equipment airworthiness requirements for pilots and aircrew wearing helmet‑mounted displays (HMDs), night vision goggles (NVGs), or both during flight operations.”

The important finding to this objective:

“DoD ejection seat equipped aircraft with aircrew wearing HMDs and/or NVGs meet airworthiness criteria in accordance with DoD Military Handbook 516B, “Airworthiness Certification Criteria,” (MIL‑HDBK‑516B) and have been certified safe‑to‑fly by the appropriate Navy and Air Force acceptance authorities. However, both Services noted that there is an increased risk of neck injury during high‑speed ejections with HMDs and/or NVGs above 450 Knots Equivalent Air Speed (KEAS), and an increased potential of neck injuries for low‑weight pilots. To mitigate these risks, both Services placed warnings, notes, cautions, and restrictions in the flight manuals.”

The rest is about ‘updating the paperwork’, philosophical questions about the flexibility to operate in a responsive manner under handbooks and guides vs. one-size fits all mandates, etc.

The really interesting thing in the report is the back and forth between the agencies involved. The report is better with the responses incorporated, and one can see where the IG report would have gone awry without those responses. It is interesting to see what responses were incorporated, and which were not. There were a few points the safety guys made that the IG report authors blew off (best one: people rarely have time to remove devices from existing helmet systems when required for ejection.) 

There are some odd turns of the phrase in the report as well. Things like "unfortunately" there not being any lightweight pilots who have had to eject in the last 20 years.

Additional reading:
In any of the media reporting on F-35 and other helmet weights, the subject of how that weight is distributed rarely comes up, yet the effect on the balance of helmet when devices are attached is a very important factor (See here and here for examples) and the F-35 helmet design has a far better weight distribution than legacy systems and is therefore more ‘comfortable’. This better balance would suggest the F-35 helmet is a probably a safer helmet at the same weight and possibly even at a slightly higher weight than legacy systems. Time and data will tell.

Dave Majumdar's F-35 'Punk Journalism'...Again

Whereby 'boy journalist' double downs on David Axe's 'Dogfight' B.S, ignores reality and dances around Libel in just a few paragraphs. 

But hey! Its always fun to watch someone debase themselves for pennies a word right?...right? 

Today, Dave Majumdar, once a promising aero reporter, apparently needed some rent money. Why else would he fabricate another F-35 click-bait hit piece for the lower-brow crowd, (update: the Punk is now the 'Defense Editior' of the digital rag) rehashing the pap that David Axe used to set off a disinformation cascade? Now I could spend all night Fisking Majumdar's craptastic article to include "27 8x10 color glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence" but there's only a couple of things worth my time, nailing Dave to the wall, that should cast the rest of his 'pap' under the proper spotlight. The first is his apparent (willful?) inability to discern information from 'spin':    

Meanwhile, proponents of the F-35—primarily Lockheed Martin and the JSF program office (JPO)—tried to dismiss the results—aggressively calling out the War is Boring outlet by name. The company and the Pentagon claimed that the tests were not truly representative because the F-35 test article involved in the trial versus the F-16 was not equipped with a full set of avionics, didn’t have its stealth coatings, and did not use the jet’s helmet-mounted display and, moreover, was not equipped to simulate high off-boresight missiles like the AIM-9X Sidewinder. Besides, the F-35 was designed to fight from long-range—the JPO and Lockheed claimed.Both sides of the debate are correct—but neither side is telling the whole story. As a good friend on the Hill recently told me: “In political communications, facts are an interesting aside, but are completely irrelevant. What we do here is spin.” That’s exactly what’s happening here—both sides are selectively cherry picking facts to make their case—spin.

Dave...Tell your 'friend' to F.O.A.D.

"Tried to dismiss the results" Dave? Facts are not "an interesting aside" to people who design and build weapon systems.  What the JPO and LM responded with was 'The Truth'. It was a post-stall agility test, testing for areas where it might be worthwhile to 'open up' the control laws (CLAWs) and was not a 'dogfight'. 

The Testing in Question was Described Ahead of Time Last Year 

Not only was what the JPO/LM response the TRUTH, it was one that was KNOWN and in the public domain the year BEFORE the test ever occurred and therefore it is also a delightfully 'provable' truth. I buried the lede with this point in an earlier post, but I recreate an excerpt here:  

From the 2014 AIAA paper "F-35A High Angle-of-Attack Testing"[1], authored by a Mr. Steve Baer, (Lockheed Martin "Aeronautical Engineer, Flying Qualities" at Edwards AFB), and presented to the Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference held between 16 and 20 June 2014, in Atlanta, Georgia we find that F-35 High AoA testing was designed to follow in the following progression:  

"The test objectives for high angle-of-attack testing are as follows:

1) Characterize the flyqualities [sic] at AoAs from 20° to the control law limit regime with operationally representative maneuvers.  

2) Demonstrate the aircraft’s ability to recover from out of control flight and assess deep stall susceptibility 

3) Evaluate the effectiveness and usefulness of the automatic pitch rocker (APR)  

4) Evaluate departure resistance at both positive and negative AoA with center of gravity (CG) positions up to the aft limit and with maximum lateral asymmetry.  

5) Assess the handling qualities of the aircraft in the High AoA flight."

Now, in case a 'punk journalist' or other factually-challenged reader wanders by (am I psychic or what?), we need to be clear that #5 has nothing to do with "dogfighting". We know this because Mr. Baer makes two points shortly thereafter within the paper. 
The first point is relevant to the state of the testing at the time of his writing. I observe that this paper was written during Objective #4 testing and published at about the time it concluded. This observation is supported by the paper's passage [emphasis/brackets mine]:

With intentional departure testing [Objective #4] wrapped up, the team will soon move into departure resistance [Still Objective #4] and plan to remove the SRC now that these systems have been verified. In this phase of testing, the jet will test the CLAW limiters with much higher energy and rates than previous testing, fleshing out and correcting areas that may be departure prone. Lastly, select operational maneuvers [Objective #5], such as a slow down turn and a Split-S, will be used to gather handling qualities data on high AoA maneuvers. With the completion of this phase, the F-35 will be released for initial operational capability in the high AoA region.

Note: 'SRC' is a 'Spin Recovery Chute'.

Clearly the testing was not yet at step #5 at the time of writing but to emphasize same, the author followed the above paragraph with [brackets/emphasis mine]: 

While the flight test team will explore legacy high AoA maneuvers for handling qualities, it will be the Operational Test and Evaluation team that will truly develop high AoA maneuvers for the F-35. In the operational world, a pilot should rarely be taking the F-35 into the high angle-of-attack regime, but the ability to do so could make the difference between being the victor or the victim in air-to-air combat....

So with this paragraph, not only does the author expound on the exploring of "legacy high AoA maneuvers" that is to come, he specifically identifies Objective 5 test "Handling Qualities" objectives and assigns the kind of testing that will "truly develop high AoA maneuvers for the F-35" (vs. 'legacy' which may be differed 'from') to the Operational Testers and NOT part of the Edwards AFB Developmental Test Team activities.

In a nutshell, just within these two paragraphs that Baer wrote in early/mid 2014 is precisely what the JPO/LM stated in their official response to Axe's so-called 'article'. 

Therefore the "reasonable man" may logically and confidently conclude the LM/JPO response:

• WAS NOT simply something that was contrived in response to Axe's made up bullsh*t but...
• WAS accurately asserting what the testing was truly about..

Go ahead Dave, spring the few bucks to buy a copy from the AIAA. Have someone with the requisite knowledge explain it to you.

Majumdar's incompetence takes him into another reprehensible act, whereby he uses David Axe's idiotic output as the justification for insinuating Billie Flynn lied to him:

The company has repeatedly made assertions about the F-35’s performance that have later proven to be false. One example I can cite immediately is when Lockheed test pilot Billie Flynn told me how a fully laden F-35 has better high AOA performance and acceleration than all comers save for the F-22. The test report that David Axe managed to obtain clearly shows Flynn’s assertions to be false. 

Nice one. Does 'Majumdar' mean 'A**hat' in English? Aside from the fact Majumdar implies Flynn is a liar, there's also the comparatively minor commission of a non-sequitur to boot.  

The rest of Majumdar's 'article' is crap too, just not worth bothering with in light of the above affronts to reality. A 'great' day for aero journalism, eh?

[1] AIAA #2014-2057

“Fighter Aircraft” Design: Driven by Operational Requirements

Part 1: Introduction

In the wake of the disinformation cascade set off by the mischaracterization of an F-35 Developmental Test report leaked to the poster-boy for Punk Journalism (and his equally hapless compadres) it became apparent that somebody, someplace should highlight just how infantile all the F-35 H8er and click-bait copycats have been on the subject.

Since ‘Axe is Boring’ ‘broke’ the story (if you can call being hand-fed the raw data by some other cretin and then making sh*t up about things he doesn’t understand ‘breaking’), I think we’ve seen every perversion of reality about the test itself, the relevance of the test, the F-35’s capabilities, the history of air combat, ‘dogfighting’, and airpower-in-general trotted out and gleefully regurgitated as if it were gospel by the innumerate and the illiterate.
As creative as the fiction published about the aircraft (it was an early production 'A' model: AF-2) performance during  the Developmental Test has been, it seems most if not all of the F-35 criticisms related to the ‘leaked’ test report fall into two broad categories. In the first category we can place all the claims/accusations that the F-35 is not somehow ‘fighter’ enough to successfully engage in air combat. In the second category we can place all the assertions that the scenarios flown in this one test were representative of how the F-35 would perform Air Combat Maneuvering aka ‘Dogfighting’ in actual combat.

We will deal with both these strains of criticisms in what will be Part 2 and Part 3 respectively within this short series. In Part 2, we will recall a rather cogent, insightful and in many ways prophetic AIAA paper from 1970s: “The Characteristics of a Fighter Aircraft”. This paper is the text transcript for the Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics speech given by Prof. Gero Madelung (speak German?) to attendees of the annual AIAA Aircraft Systems and Technology Meeting in 1977.  I’ll then introduce the thoughts on fighter development from a very influential and widely-cited engineer (among aircraft design types anyway) who among other things can be considered the originator of the concept ‘supermaneuverability’.  Thus, Part 2 (which may have to be broken into sub-parts if it gets too unwieldy) will bring us up to speed on top-level ‘fighter’ aircraft design drivers right up to the present-day state-of-the-art, and maybe a peek or two at the future.

Whereas Part 2 will provide proper background and perspective, Part 3 will be where the perspective will be applied and so will be more ‘analytical’. We will break down a 1 vs. 1 air combat scenario into a high-level conceptual model of constituent phases and associated combatant states. Then we will apprise the F-35’s potential advantages and disadvantages at different points of reference during engagement scenarios as it moves into and out of those phases and states and under what conditions it can navigate its way through those phases and states. We will also weigh the relevance of those advantages/disadvantages to possible combat outcomes.

Part 3 will take some time to complete after Part 2, so I will ask the readers to bear with me on any delays, or perhaps I will invite comment on aspects of the approach to Part 3 as I build the conceptual model. We should not have to account for probability of outcomes and only illuminate the ‘possibilities’ for discussion-- which will simplify the problem significantly but not to the point that careful construction will not still be necessary just to avoid oversimplification on the one hand or sophistry on the other. This is the hard part of Part 3: to make complete enough to be valid and convey meaning, not so complete that too many eyes glaze over. The topic would be a lot easier for me to treat if there were more authorized references to the F-35’s Developmental Test that I could tie into, but we’ll muddle through without them somehow.

This is also probably going to seem awfully obvious and trivial in many places to some, but I want to have a single reference to point non-technical minds to in the future. -- Because this is one of those topics where you could get worn out just beating down the same stupidity and misperceptions every time they pop up.
Finally, in each part I will include a reminder:

NOTE:

Nowhere in this series of posts, or in any other posts the reader will find here, is the assertion made that ‘maneuverability’ (however one defines it) is "unimportant"-- in the past, modern day or immediate future . This must be stated unambiguously up front because I've seen the tiresome broad-brush accusation of same made too-often when anyone dares challenge some closely held belief as to maneuverability’s relative importance to fighter design or dares challenge the vague reasons why many of the uninitiated think “maneuverability” is important. 

This note won’t stop tired criticisms from arising, but it will make intelligent people stop and think before they paper any comment thread with false conclusions. And this series of posts isn’t for the people too stupid to know better anyway.

Part 2 is here

CNO Nominee Richardson Got These F-35 Questions Too?

I told them I didn't want the job, but I answered them anyway.

Hat Tip "spazinbad" @ F-16.net

SMSgt Mac appearing before SASC?

CNO Nominee Admiral Richardson answered some pre-confirmation hearing questions. I like his answers pretty much, but like my answers better. It comes with the freedom of being long retired (as well as never being an Admiral).

RE: Tactical Fighter Programs
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program, which is the largest and most expensive acquisition program in the Department’s history, was formally initiated as a program of record in 2002 with a total planned buy of 2,443 aircraft for the U.S. At projected procurement rates, the aircraft will be procured by the Department well into the 2030 decade to reach its total quantity buy. The program has not yet completed its systems development and demonstration phase, and is not due to enter full rate production until 2019, 17 years after its inception.

The Navy’s FY16 budget request indicates a program of record of 369 F-35C, with Navy procurement continuing throughout the life of the F-35 procurement program. The overall requirement for 2,443 aircraft was established nearly 20 years ago. Since that time, however, there have been countervailing pressures to: (1) reduce force structure to conserve resources; (2) improve capability to respond to prospective adversary technological advances and increased capabilities from updated threat assessments; and (3) respond to an evolving national defense strategy.

Do you believe the Navy’s F-35C requirement is still valid?
Well Senators, that’s quite a preface to a “yes or no” question. But as it comes from such an august body as the Senate Armed Services Committee, I will use the working assumption it is offered to provide proper perspective to the questions to come, rather than an attempt to ‘poison the well’,and so the Committee’s prefacing informs my response,and I believe due diligence also requires me to to expand upon the very fine points the Committee raises, in part as an answer to this first question. 

As the Committee very well knows, the F-35 Program is as large and expensive as it is because it is really three programs in one. While there have been studies that have reviewed whether or not combining programs was worth the effort, we must note that aside from them all having contentious ground rules and assumptions embedded, that NONE of them measured the costs and benefits of the F-35 program against the typical number of programs we would have to undertake to successfully field three different aircraft. Can there be any doubt looking back at history that at least four or perhaps five programs would have to be attempted to actually field three different jets? Can we possibly fathom the procurement costs per airplane if we had attempted to field the minority F-35B and F-35C as stand-alone programs? Mr. Chairman and Committee Members, the Navy and Marine Corps budgets are very blessed to have the Air Force subsidize The Department of the Navy’s rent-seeking by absorbing a disproportionate percentage of the net development costs.

As the bulk of the development is behind us in sunk cost and schedule, and there is no indication that the way forward is too difficult, completion of the systems development and demonstration phase should not be a problem.

That it will have taken 17 years to reach full rate production would be an issue above my station if I were still on active duty: I would not be in a position to second-guess prior Congressional decisions to stretch development and delay production, trading risk for schedule and cost. It would also not be my place to pass judgement on the actions of prior Congress’ that created the three-in-one program approach in the first place. 

As a retiree who returned to civilian life over twenty years ago however, I am free to answer that the former was typical, foolish, political tinkering and/or ego-stroking on the part of Congress. The latter however, is shaping up to have been a very good idea by your predecessors.

And so the final answer to your question is therefore, of course: “Yes”--the F-35C will be a VITAL part of the future Carrier Air Wing.

Do you believe the Navy can afford and needs to procure 310 more F-35Cs with a procurement cost of over $42 billion?

As to ‘need’, the F-35C provides essential 5th generation strike fighter capability to our Carrier Air Wings. Without this capability, we cannot achieve air superiority. The Department of the Navy currently has a requirement for 340 F-35Cs. That number needed of course is always subject to revision as national strategies change and new information is made available. For example, on the one hand, the Navy doesn’t yet have any operational experience with low observable or fifth generation capabilities. As the Navy gains experience, it will probably create opportunities and incentives to not procure more of or retire older systems faster on the one hand. On the other hand, the Navy has a history of buying aircraft over long timeframes due to expected attrition, and given the F-35C’s stellar initial sea trials, we may just not lose as many jets like we have in the past and so they will not need replacement. If I were confirmed as CNO, I would work with the Chairman and other service chiefs to revalidate the appropriate number of aircraft the Navy requires to meet the mission.

Speaking to the cost figure offered, let us note that the numbers you mention are either future inflated dollars or dollars that include developmental cost dollars that are already sunk, both, and/or are based upon presumptions of future economic factors that may or may not apply. They are also spread over how many years? I would enjoy exploring the nuances of these numbers with the SASC, numbers that should never be aired in a casual manner, as no doubt the SASC would agree.

Do you believe that the Navy will still want to buy the F-35C, an aircraft design that will be 30 years old before the Navy production is scheduled to finish?
Well let’s see, we’re flying the F-18C/Ds and F-18E/F/Gs right now. The current versions are evolutions of a design originally produced in 1975 and are still in procurement. That’s 40 years since inception. So 30 years should not be a stretch at all for the Navy and the F-35, especially considering that unlike its predecessors, the F-35B and C are designed to evolve as required over time. Right now the Navy is committed to making the F-35C the next Carrier Air Wing fighter, complementing the F/A-18E/F until the F-18 reaches the end of its lifetime in the 2030s when the basic design will be over 50 years old. I believe once the fleet gets its hands on the F-35C, the fighter/strike community will set new standards in creative thinking and divining ways to get rid of the older jets and buy more F-35Cs as the older jets obsolescence becomes more obvious.

Do you believe the Navy’s current and planned force mix of tactical aircraft is sufficient to meet current and future threats around the globe, and most especially in the Asia-Pacific theater of operations where the “tyranny of distance” is such a major factor?

Currently, I do. There are capability, inventory, and readiness aspects to delivering the required force mix. If I was ever to be confirmed as CNO, I would work with leadership to determine the best options to pace the threat in a dynamic security environment. The fiscal environment will bound the scope of our efforts, and so I would urge Congress to work harder in creating a fiscal environment that will provide for all of our Constitutionally-mandated needs.

The Secretary of the Navy recently remarked that he believed the F-35 should be and would be the nation’s last manned fighter aircraft. Do you believe this to be true?
If I were to be confirmed as CNO, I would work with the Secretary of the Navy to aggressively advance the development of unmanned systems. It is crucial that we push the boundaries of what unmanned technologies can achieve; the next generation in tactical aviation will play a large part in this transformation.

Having said the above, let me also observe that the Secretary has all of the technical knowledge and expertise in all the relevant knowledge areas and disciplines, with the liberal-arts and legal education sufficient to have once been a competent junior ship’s officer. I’m sure he was a very fine surface warfare officer, once upon a time. His thoughts and opinions on the subject of UAVs carries all the commensurate weight that comes with such an accomplished background.

I thank the Committee for their interest. Now go away.

F-35B IOC is Imminent

Prepare for all the Handwringing

Word on the street is that F-35 IOC is all done except for the signatures (which always leaves the political angle, but ya gotta have faith).

I remember all the angst when the B-2 IOC occurred. How did that work out?

Like this:

IOC is the beginning, not the end. People who think you can field a perfect airplane out the door don't know airplanes, people, or how weapon systems become operational.

Note the critics were still acting in accordance to their SOPs even after B-2 IOC. Although the GAO pretty much threw in the towel after they published the report they had already written before Allied Force in 1999 (with only a cursory nod to the reality that just smacked around their paper pushing exercise.  

By the time F-35 FOC occurs, the critics will have lost all their teeth and will be gumming it to death. 

P.W. Singer and August Cole? 'Game Show' Quality Defense Analysis

(Apologies to Game Shows Everywhere)

AKA: The "Axe is Boring Disinformation Cascade" Continues...

Ersatz sound-bite providers cum defense 'thinkers' P.W. Singer and August Cole have piled even more B.S. on the F-35 non-story that was made up out of whole cloth earlier over at 'Axe is Boring'.

To summarize the authors (in sequence):

1. Help propagate the disinformation cascade by repeating the nonsensical hit-piece-on-a-report that neither they nor the original author propagating such drivel apparently are capable of understanding. 
2. Misrepresent the official response to said hit-piece and critique their own misrepresentation. 
3. Repeat a tired old ‘we tried missiles only’ trope. (Only interceptors designed to engage nuclear-armed bombers at a distance were ever ‘missiles only’ armed). 
4. Misrepresent the Navy’s actual design objective of the F-4, which was as a "Fleet Interceptor" of aforementioned bombers, and armed with A2A missiles designed to intercept those same less-than-maneuverable bombers and at very high altitudes (unlike how the ROEs shaped SEA combat). BTW: The Air Force ALWAYS wanted a gun on its F-4s in the fighter role. Robert the ’Strange’ said ‘NO’ to the AF until the F-4E. 
5. Provide a cartoon snapshot of the fighter pilots' post-1968 experience in SEA. 
6. Then reassert the bogus F-35 hit-piece masquerading as ‘reporting’ and analysis as if there were 'facts' involved.

So then.... 

Q: What IS there about the rest of the authors' so-called ‘analysis’ that would make their ‘blog post’ anything other than 'intellectual' booger-flicking?

A: Nothing.

By way of a palate cleanser, lets compare Singer and Cole's B.S. with some, y'know...FACTS.

Contrary to what some might believe, I try not to just point at the stupid people and their stupidity without also providing some positive and countervailing content. So in passing, let us review some information that at least provides some information as to what that 'test' Axe & Co. got their beta-boy panties in a wad over  REALLY means -- instead of what they want it to mean (apparently just because it fits their preconceived life-positions).

The Testing in Question was Described Ahead of Time Last Year 

From the 2014 AIAA paper "F-35A High Angle-of-Attack Testing"[1], authored by a Mr. Steve Baer, (Lockheed Martin "Aeronautical Engineer, Flying Qualities" at Edwards AFB), and presented to the Atmospheric Flight Mechanics Conference held between 16 and 20 June 2014, in Atlanta, Georgia we find that F-35 High AoA testing was designed to follow in the following progression: 

The test objectives for high angle-of-attack testing are as follows:

1) Characterize the flyqualities [sic] at AoAs from 20° to the control law limit regime with operationally representative maneuvers. 

2) Demonstrate the aircraft’s ability to recover from out of control flight and assess deep stall susceptibility 

3) Evaluate the effectiveness and usefulness of the automatic pitch rocker (APR) 

4) Evaluate departure resistance at both positive and negative AoA with center of gravity (CG) positions up to the aft limit and with maximum lateral asymmetry. 

5) Assess the handling qualities of the aircraft in the High AoA flight

Now, in case a 'punk journalist' or other factually-challenged reader wanders by, we need to be clear that #5 has nothing to do with "dogfighting". We know this because Mr. Baer makes two points shortly thereafter within the paper. 

The first point is relevant to the state of the testing at the time of his writing. I observe that this paper was written during Objective #4 testing and published at about the time it concluded. This observation is supported by the passage [emphasis/brackets mine]:

With intentional departure testing [Objective #4] wrapped up, the team will soon move into departure resistance [Objective #4] and plan to remove the SRC now that these systems have been verified. In this phase of testing, the jet will test the CLAW limiters with much higher energy and rates than previous testing, fleshing out and correcting areas that may be departure prone. Lastly, select operational maneuvers [Objective #5], such as a slow down turn and a Split-S, will be used to gather handling qualities data on high AoA maneuvers. With the completion of this phase, the F-35 will be released for initial operational capability in the high AoA region.

   Note: 'CLAW' is Control Law and 'SRC' is Spin Recovery Chute.

Clearly the testing was not yet at step #5 at the time of writing but to emphasize same, the author followed the above paragraph with [emphasis mine]: 

While the flight test team will explore legacy high AoA maneuvers for handling qualities, it will be the Operational Test and Evaluation team that will truly develop high AoA maneuvers for the F-35. In the operational world, a pilot should rarely be taking the F-35 into the high angle-of-attack regime, but the ability to do so could make the difference between being the victor or the victim in air-to-air combat....

So with this paragraph, not only does the author expound on the exploring of "legacy high AoA maneuvers" (the 'legacy' part is important) that is to come, he specifically assigns the kind of testing that will "truly develop high AoA maneuvers for the F-35" (vs. 'legacy' which may be differed from) to the Operational Testers and NOT part of the Edwards AFB Developmental Test Team activities. 

In a nutshell, just within these two paragraphs that Baer wrote in early/mid 2014 is precisely what the JPO/LM stated in their official response to Axe's B.S.

Therefore the "reasonable man" may logically and confidently conclude the JPO response:

1. WAS NOT simply something that was contrived in response to Axe's made up bullsh*t  but...
2. WAS accurately asserting what the testing was truly about...

....debunking all and any claims to the contrary.

[1] AIAA #2014-2057

Minor changes for clarity, readability and typo corrections made 23 July 15 @ 1944 hrs.  

.