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

William Hartung: You got Yer'self a Reckoning a'Coming Boy!

I'm going to take this craptastic, yet all so formulaic and predictable op-ed piece by William Hartung apart ...... piece by piece.

William Hartung describing the most inches of column he ever wrote without perverting
reality to serve his ideological bent. 

Everybody ready? All settled in? Then without further ado let’s throw ole Hartung’s Op Ed up on the slab, drain the corpse, and do the postmortem.

Don’t rush forward on the F-35 

By William D. Hartung 

To hear Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon tell it, the myriad problems with the F-35 combat aircraft are all behind us, and it is time to dramatically ramp up production of the plane. Nothing could be further from the truth. The plane continues to have basic problems with engine performance, software development, operating costs, maintenance, and reliability that suggest the Pentagon and the military services should proceed with caution.

This is a CLASSIC ‘Hartung’ opener. He begins with a scurilous attack: calling a dehumanized Lockheed Martin and Pentagon ‘liars’ [Hartung claims “they” say ‘x’ but Hartung says it is not ‘true’!]. Hartung then follows with an intentionally over-generalized laundry list of things that he asserts are in the ‘present tense’ (“The plane continues to have basic problems”) instead of observing these things he lists have occurred (more or less--usually less than how he describes them) and are either already in the past, or are being addressed per a viable plan now in execution. In any case, his over–generalization obfuscates events and encourages the casual reader to assume all the problems are significant and peculiar to the F-35 in the first place, when for the most part, these kinds of ‘problems’ have been part and parcel with any advanced aircraft development program since…..ever.

Hartung’s opening is ‘battlefield prep’. We’ve noted before the use of P.A.C.E. by the faux ‘reformers’ and this is a Hartung-style invocation of same. Hartung employs it for the same reason(s) POGO et al employ it: It is critical to the trite and cliché polemic-to-follow that Hartung bases his pitch upon two fundamental assumptions--which the Faux Military Reform crowd unvaryingly ground the bulk of their argumentation. These bases are:

1) A ‘problem’ is something that is never overcome or overtaken by events until it is proven to the ‘reformers’ satisfaction. And one wonders if it can ever REALLY be proven to be a thing of the past to the ‘reformer’ mind.

2) Closely related to #1 is the usually inferred assertion that no weapon system should be fielded until it is ‘mature’ (as decided by the ‘reformers’) vs. ‘mature enough’ (as decided BY THE OPERATORS). I would call the assertion “a belief” except I’m not nearly naïve enough to think they really believe what they want everyone else to accept.

Neither of these bases have any logical relationship to any generic real-world problem-solving nor program management activities, much less any proximity to weapon-system specific development experience. While it is exceedingly rare for a ‘Reformer’ to openly acknowledge these tenets, they are among the pillars of their basic doctrine.
Both bases of ‘reformer’ argumentation will be seen in full display through the rest of Hartung’s bloviating, but I consider the second basis the more onerous. It is easy for the average reader to catch on when the ‘reformers’ inevitably cling to claims about a specific problem too long after it is apparent it is no longer a problem to the average person. But as Hartung and his ilk are chronic agitators and manipulators of the technologically ignorant, those whom the ‘reformers’ gull into actually believing a weapon system COULD be ‘matured’ (to some unspoken and/or poorly defined standard BTW) before it is in the hands of the operators are MORE vulnerable. After all, most people have no idea of the amount of work is behind even the most trivial technology they use every day. Without these presumptive non-truths propping up the protestations, their  hollow arguments immediately crumble and their motives become openly suspect to anyone applying the 'reasonable man test. I bring out this point upfront because just by remembering these are the key major premises, the reader is forewarned (and thus forearmed) to enjoy the rest of this ‘Fisking’ of Hartung’s yellow-press editorializing.
The ‘reformers’ chant their mantras of “risk”, “maturity”, etc.to explain their motivations, but this in spite of the fact that no one can show us such a case EVER occurring where a fully-functional weapon system emerged as a fully effective ‘whole’ coming out of the development phase. Nor has anyone ever adequately described how it could even be ‘possible’ without introducing more unspoken and equally erroneous ‘reformer’ assumptions into the equation. I’ve stated what I believe, but I leave it to the reader to decide if Hartung and his ilk are victims of their own bizarre ideology and rhetoric and therefore are of a kind with the people J.R. Pierce (I never tire of that guy!) identified in his famous dictum

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

....Or not.

Let’s continue dissecting Hartung’s rant….

If the F-35 isn’t ready for prime time, what’s the rush? The answer can be summed up in one word: politics. The decision to approve the Marines’ version of the plane for Initial Operating Capability (IOC) before the end of this year and the recent proposal to fund over 450 planes in the next several years are designed to make the F-35 program “too big to fail.” Once production reaches a certain tipping point, it will become even harder for members of Congress, independent experts, or taxpayers to slow down or exert control over the program.

See how after setting up his presumptive preface (“If the F-35 isn’t ready for prime time..”) Hartung works from the assumption the reader has accepted his presumption and THEN builds a Strawman argument (or “begs the question”) :

” … what’s the rush? The answer can be summed up in one word: politics.”?

Hartung then attempts to suck the reader into his way of thinking by making more unsupported assertions up front. Hartung desires the slow-witted among us to view the F-35 program as HE says it is, not what those who are working the program say it is. And on a program that has seen its share of delays due more to preemptive programmatic decisions (risk avoidance) and external influences (stretching SDD to reduce concurrency) than from any real manifestations of technical issues (2 years), 

Hartung slimes on the idea that working on a bulk buy to lower unit costs at this time is a “rush”? Eventually Hartung will get around to listing ‘problems’ but not until (in typical Hartung fashion) he beats the jungle drums more in the effort to get the tribe lathered up and buy into his coming attempts at misdirection. 

I note that in his observation about when a program moves further down the road it becomes harder to ‘control’ he REALLY means it will be harder for the Faux Reformers to terminate it. After all, it is part of basic program and project management common knowledge that the further any project gets down the road, the fewer opportunities there are to change it, if only because there is less in the future that can be influenced as the present becomes past. So…. Freaking…. what? Even Hartung’s publisher of his execrable books knows that is even a truism for a simple book project. 

Note the reference to 'independent experts'. While there are always a few outside a program, they are never who the 'reformers' are really referring to. When a Hartung, or other 'reformer' say this kind of thing, what they are referring to is their fellow travelers in the anti-defense industry (more on this later).

What next?……

What needs to be fixed before the F-35 is determined to be adequate to join the active force? Let’s start with the engine. On June 23 of last year an F-35’s engine caught on fire while the plane was taxiing on the runway at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Now, nearly a year later, a new report from the Air Force’s Accident Investigation Board attributed the fire to a catastrophic failure of the engine. So far, no long-term solution has been found to the problems identified by the accident investigation board. An April report by the Government Accountability Office has described the reliability of the engine as “very poor (less than half of what it should be).”

Hartung often goes more than two paragraphs without making any concrete assertions before he starts introducing any specificity. I presume there was column-space limitation that curtailed his stem-winding this go-around. In any case, here he asserts, knowingly or unknowingly, two falsehoods.

In the first case, he characterizes the state of the permanent fix for the F135 engine as “no long-term solution has been found”. He would have been more accurate and far less deceptive if he had stated “no long-term solution selection has been publically announced”, as it has been ‘in all the papers’ that Pratt and Whitney had identified a number of options for the program to pick from, and that it is essentially a matter of evaluating the options and selecting the best option to follow.. But that isn’t hopeless sounding at all, certainly not as dire as Hartung’s little misdirection makes things sound does it? There is also no guarantee, because there is no need, that a detailed description of the final fix will even be announced.

In the second assertion, Hartung commits the Biased Sample (Cherry Picking) logical fallacy by holding up the GAO report as evidence and conveniently excluding uncontested Pratt and Whitney responses to same.

Hartung now proceeds to speak of the past as if 1) It matters and 2) treat the past as indicative of the present and future. This time, it is ‘ALIS’.

Problems have also plagued the plane’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), which is needed to keep the F-35 up and running. As Mandy Smithberger of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight puts it, “ALIS is the core to making sure the F-35 functions.” A report last year by the Pentagon’s independent testing office noted that the system had been “fielded with deficiencies.” In April, F-35 maintainers told members of the House Armed Services committee that 80 percent of the problems identified by ALIS were “false positives.” In addition, as Smithberger has noted, the rush to deployment means that there will be no careful assessment of how changes in ALIS affect other aspects of the aircraft’s performance.

The funniest thing about this paragraph is I’m pretty sure neither Hartung nor Smithberger really know what the true scope and function of ‘ALIS’ is, but wha-ta-hay, let’s dissect some more.
First off, these guys apparently didn’t get the memo that the portable ‘ALIS’ was used in the Recent OT-1 aboard the USS Wasp. Software and hardware updates are pretty much going to plan. One exception is the 'downlink' to maintenance on inbound jets, which won’t be seen until Block 4. Personally, I don’t think that is a bad thing, as it is really evolved DoD security requirements driving the delay. The ‘false positives’ Mandy is quoted as all worried about are on their way to being overcome already. Maybe if Mandy had gone to a better school, y’know—an “Engineering College”, then advanced technology wouldn’t seem so daunting to her. That is, assuming she believes the crap she writes.

Mandy Smithberger, for those who haven’t been following the ‘reformer’ industry as closely as I have lo these many years, is the next-gen ‘Winslow Wheeler’ at POGO. For those who don’t know what “the Straus Military Reform Project at the Project on Government Oversight” is…it’s a long story. Bottom line, it is a jobs program for anti-defense miscreants sponsored by one Phil Straus: an under-achieving-trust-fund-baby-cum-itinerant-‘photographer’ who is also, BTW, the Chairman of the Board of “Mother Jones”.

Chairman Phil Strauss: Intellect held hostage by Ideology

Mandy Smithberger, is a long-time POGOette who has only recently returned to the POGO sty from a finishing school of sorts. She dropped off POGO’s payroll for a while (to get her network mojo going with Congress and elsewhere I presume) spending time as a part-time “National Security Staffer” for a cheapa** Leftard Congresswoman whose main claim to fame is she didn’t get kill’t in the runup to, or climax of, the Jim Jones tragedy. Sure, Mandy looks pretty “cleaned-up’ nowadays, but just a few of years ago she was showing a more candid side:

Mandy Smithberger (2011) letting out a little more of the inner feral SJW than thse days, Nothing says 'serious defense thinker' than a little body-modification involving piercings in places prone to infection.     

So why is it important you know the relationship between these people? Because, as it has been known for quite some time, the ‘reform’ crowd collude and collaborate on their special targets, Their very tight clown network habitually use each other’s quotes and mutually cite or refer to each other as 'experts' in fields where the real experts wouldn’t let them in the door to call for a tow. It is more classic application of the P.A.C.E. approach.. 

Let's move on to the next bit of spittle on the floor shall we?

There have also been serious problems with the helmet that is supposed to serve as an F-35 pilot’s eyes in the sky. Until the helmet is working to full capacity, the ability of an F-35 to drop bombs accurately or recognize enemy fighters will be impaired. And in April, the Pentagon’s office of independent testing noted that in the event of a failure of the helmet, a pilot would not be able to see what is happening below or behind the plane.

In typical ‘Reform’ fashion, Hartung artfully ignores 1) the fact that the helmet’s capabilities are every bit under development as the rest of the plane, 2) the needed capabilities weren’t even known to be possible when the program began but were seen as desirous and worth the effort, and 3) that the capabilities are coming online in accordance with the current plan. 

He makes his unqualified and un-quantified assertion that the operators will be ‘impaired’ until the helmet is developed without acknowledging with the fact that the operators consider the initial capability sufficient for now (and some already say it is better than what it replaces) AND the Gen III helmet is planned by AF IOC next year. 

It IS quaint that Hartung and his fellow travelers feel qualified to presume they know better what is good for the Marine Corps than the Marine Corps does. That is if you believe THEY believe the drivel they are spreading and aren’t just trying to stop or curtail yet another program. BTW: the second option would make them lying b*stards of the worst kind…among other things.
The last assertion Hartung makes is a howler. Somebody tell him 1) no one else can even see through their plane on their BEST day and 2) the pilot doesn’t have to look behind him or use his helmet to ‘see’(eyeball) anything behind him as he can ‘see’ it on his panel if he or she desires. In any case, the rest of the F-35 systems still provide the pilot with situational awareness superior to any other candidate Hartung could imagine….if he could 'imagine' that is.

Declaring planes ready before they can actually meet basic performance standards is not a responsible approach to fielding an aircraft. Down the road, many of the problems that have yet to be resolved will require expensive retrofits of planes already in the force.

I could really pick on Hartung here and challenge him on exactly what he means by ‘basic’ performance standards, but the real problem is he’s F.O.S. about what kind of capability EVER can be initially fielded, because EVEN IF A WEAPON WAS PERFECT from the first article rolling out the door, the operators are the ones that will mature the capability over time. His claim is essentially 'not doing the impossible is irresponsible'. No. What IS irresponsible, is his penchant for making these kind of asinine assertions. It is yet another typical ‘Reformer’ tactic: ignore the real expectations set by the acquisition system and complain that the possible isn’t ‘enough’.

Hartung begins his signoff by making the now-cliché assertion that the F-35 is somehow ‘flawed’ because it is a multi-role fighter and attack aircraft:

The specific performance issues cited above don’t address a more fundamental problem with the F-35. The program is grounded in a basic conceptual flaw. Expecting variants of the same aircraft to serve as a fighter, a bomber, a close air support aircraft, and a plane that can land on Navy carriers and do vertical take off and landing for the Marines has resulted in design compromises that means it does none of these things as well as it should, given its immense cost.

Why, oddly enough, the above is EXACTLY the kind of stupid-think one would expect from a ‘journalist’ who came out years ago as a peace-at-any-price social activist and who I note STILL has NO relevant experience or knowledge base upon which to make such a judgement. If one did have the relevant qualifications, one might ask oneself why it is then that among the most produced aircraft in the post Korean-War era, nearly all of them are multi-role fighters? Hartung is just being an over-the-top idiot on this point, but he’s not alone. This has become ‘Reformer’ Canon, so expect it to persist years after FOC.

Current plans call for an average expenditure of over $12 billion per year for procurement of the F-35 through 2038, a figure that will be unsustainable unless other proposed programs like a new tanker, a new bomber, and a new generation of more capable unmanned aerial vehicles are substantially scaled back.

Gee. More Hartung-Brand pronouncements (“will be unsustainable unless X, Y, or Z”) that exclude the little point that the F-35 costs are coming down into current 4th Generation cost territory (as planned) and I think what Hartung fears most about the bulk buy is that if it happens then the costs will almost certainly continue to drop faster. I note here (again) that the only way the procurement of the F-35 goes through to 2038 is if they are successful AND the need for as many as planned continues. The most important thing for keeping total acquisition cost down is not the total number to be bought, but the rate at which they are bought: more ‘early’ equals more ‘cheaper’.

‘Dropping names’ as he does when mentioning new 'bombers' and new 'UAVs' reminds me of another favorite ‘reformer’ tactic: always promote the last program or the next program over the current program: lather, rinse, repeat.

Unless further, realistic testing can demonstrate that the F-35 can adequately perform all of its proposed missions, it’s not worth the cost. The Pentagon should slow down and make sure it knows what it’s getting before it spends tens of billions of additional taxpayer dollars on the F-35. And Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) should subject the program to close scrutiny during his committee’s proposed strategic review of major acquisition programs.

Ah, the final ‘pronouncement’. The DoD Customers (even the Navy) , US Partners, and FMS Customers know exactly what they are getting. Hartung just wants everyone to agree with his crap. This last paragraph does perhaps identify who his real target audience is though. I don’t think even McCain is that stupid, but maybe his constituents are?

Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy.

No. Hartung’s a rabid anti-defense shill from within the Faux Reform Astroturf Noise Machine. He'd be a loyal babbler if he was still a journalist, and the CIP has it's toes in many things 'left', so Hartung could be considered a Stalwart operating inside a Fellow Traveler network.

Tyler Rogoway on F-35 Fuel Trucks

Sometimes,.... when it’s really, really hot..., you don’t want to heat soak your fuel trucks. So What? 

Hat tip:KamenRiderBlade at F-16.net 

Tyler Rogoway writes for a living. He’s got to write about something, and the latest ‘something’ is all about telling the American, nay, The World’s Low-Information crowd that not only the Air Force has found out that in really, really hot, weather, it doesn’t want to 'heat soak' the fuel trucks servicing your F-35s, but also that this development is, apparently in Rogoway’s opinion, a ‘BAD!’ thing.

His ‘article’ is about what we've come to expect from him, and the entire treatment of the subject matter is an excellent example (yet one more in a line of many) of how F-35 critics will highlight something they don’t understand as being a flaw or deficiency. The next step will be to add that one little mis-characterization to a litany of previous mis-characterizations, and then use them in their totality to continuously criticize and condemn the aircraft, program, technology,and hell, when you get right down to it, even the ‘National Defense Strategy’ that drives the selection and fielding of weapon systems in the first place.

The ardent F-35 critics generally fall into two camps: Those that do so while really understanding NONE of it, as I suspect in Rogoway’s case, or alternatively, those who do so as an intentional manipulation of the facts to distort reality for nefarious purposes (P.A.C.E. anyone?). I am indifferent as to what brand of delusion drives the contrived criticisms, but believe while the latter is incurable, there is always hope for disabusing the former of their delusions through information. (Kreuger-Dunning Effect notwithstanding, there is always hope). I could go into Rogoway’s GAWKER piece and dissect it into itty-bitty chunks of tautological floatsam, but to me the comment thread is far more interesting.

Rogoway’s façade of being a disinterested observer slips somewhat, and probably reveals more about where he is ‘coming from’ than he really would have wished. To his credit, he did not immediately wash these exchanges down the memory hole like a lot of people would have.

I’m now going to place one of my favorite quotes here for later reference. I think I will be pointing to it later in this post:

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

–J.R. Pierce 

------------

Here we go. My observations in [square brackets] and boldface emphases in Rogoway’s responses are mine. No typos are corrected. The selected (because it was more succinct than another) exchange of interest is:

‘Dastim’ to Tyler Rogoway 

Having decades of experience with LockMar's military products (Submarine sonar), I can honestly say this is par for the course. It is VERY common for a new weapons system to have faults out of the gate and the more complex/expensive they are, the more faults possible. Moving forward they prove themselves invaluable but the start is always ugly. When they took the submarine sonar contracts in the early 90s we had a plethora of problems, some mission limiting, but in the end, their systems proved to be the best in the world. Be patient, this shit is far more complicated than most of you have any idea about.

[Other than not being a ‘fault’, but an emergent requirement based upon the press release wording, the need for fuel not to exceed some very high temperature when it is loaded is almost certainly driven by the aircraft using the fuel system as a heat sink for its environmental control system (ECS). If the fuel is already hot, it will not be an effective heat sink, will it? This again, is not a ‘fault’, but at worst it is an “operational requirement”. All aircraft have specific operational requirements, and there’s no requirement that they all be the same that I’ve ever heard of. So What? If one is familiar with advanced aircraft or avionics systems design, one might speculate--and then ask for confirmation either way—that perhaps the additional heat controls placed on the fuel that is loaded and the effect on the ECS cooling system is related to the closely controlled gaps and openings on the F-35 outer mold line (OML) in order to meet LO requirements. For whatever reason, the requirement can be perceived as problematic only if it will require some onerous workarounds to overcome. Clearly this isn’t about an F-35’s systems intolerance of normal military operating temperatures and requirements, though the ‘stories’ written to-date might lead one to believe it were so. This has to be about fuel temperatures after the fuel has been heat-soaked for hours (or days), and reducing the heat soak by either reducing the amount of heat absorbed directly (paint the truck tank a light color) or indirectly (shelter the truck to prevent direct sunlight from beating down on the fuel tank). Not being a panic-prone F-35 hatercritic, I would also wonder if then perhaps the F-35 might also expect fewer problems with very cold fuel in arctic climes? Dastim’s point about complexity is well founded and well made, but it is only half the story. Combine an aircraft in development experiencing the normal issues one would expect if one knew what they were doing, with the apparent legions of technically deficient souls who have NO understanding of the challenges AND BENEFITS that make those challenges worth the effort in pursuing advanced technology systems, and you get a technically illiterate response...such as:]

Tyler Rogoway to ‘Dastim’ 

You sir are a part of the problem. Major systemic issues led to the F-35 being in the place that it was, including ridiculous sell job on concurrency and laughable cost goals and timelines. We cannot sustain the best fighting force in the world like this, it will economically break us.

You may feel just at home with this sort of nonsense and after writing well over 200 pieces on this program I am insulted when you say myself and others probably have no idea what we are talking about. We need a new approach with fresh minds that will come up with new ways so that this sort of program never happens again. And finally, the F-35 program, the largest weapons program in history, is not new sonar arrays for submarines.

[Rogoway’s first paragraph, aside from the abstract, unsupported, and unwarranted accusation made against his commenter, is a series of claims made without supporting evidence and with the presumption that they are indisputable facts when in reality they are a series of claims that are not only debatable but have been and are continuously debated. Rogoway, apparently happens to believe these claims are true. This is his first logical fallacy: “Begging the Question”. He layers on top of this fallacy, via assertions of “ridiculous”, “sell job” and “laughable” (without falsifiable support) the additional logical fallacy of “Appeal to Ridicule”. The second assertion that he has written “well over 200 pieces on this program” in defense of his knowledge base is clearly a Fallacious Appeal to Authority, and it is one built upon another fallacy: The Non-Sequitur. Just because someone ‘writes’ about something, particularly ‘opinion pieces’ it “does not follow” that they must understand, much less be an authority on what they are writing about. How we judge someone knows or knows not what they are talking about is based upon the CONTENT and the 'verifiability' of the writing. Rogoway digs deeper with a rhetorical ploy you don’t see every day: Righteous Indignation (“I am insulted”) over his being ‘doubted’. Rogoway begins his fadeout with more ‘Begging the Question; (‘need fresh minds’) with another Non Sequitur (‘so it will never happen again’). Rogoway’s last sentence is a throwaway line but he should have thrown it farther. As he slung it, “the F-35 program, the largest weapons program in history, is not new sonar arrays for submarines” misses Dastim’s point: It takes time to develop and field complex systems. If Rogoway is willfully ignoring this point, his assertions that ‘one of these is not like the other’ could very well be thought of as a Composition Fallacy in his denial.]

------------

I wonder... 

If Rogoway cut down on his logical fallacies to nil, would the next 200 articles on the F-35 gain him the  'cred' he thinks he already deserves? Personally, I think he won't get any better until he realizes he is one of those Novices' old J.R. warned us about. (Told you I would refer back to J.R.)

I worked a 12 hour day today (now 'yesterday'-yikes), so I don’t feel like taking down his Magnum Opus of Circumstantial Ad Hominem that occurred in his exchange with ‘ashkelon’ tonight/this morning.

But here's some food for thought, 

What happened the last time a bunch of naysayers, some 'expert', but all OUTSIDERS who were looking in at a revolutionary weapon system program and then made all kinds of criticisms they just knew 'had to be true'?
Answer: Hilarity ensued.

Hello GAO? About that F-35 ‘Report’

Next time maybe you could bring some experts in something other than ‘bean counting’.

It appears that the GAO attempted to structure their latest F-35 ‘Report’ “F-35 SUSTAINMENT: Need for Affordable Strategy, Greater Attention to Risks, and Improved Cost Estimates”, to deliver a certain message, a certain way, and with a certain flourish. But with only the most cursory professional eyeballing, gaps in the report’s observations, argumentation, and conclusions quickly appear. Viewed more closely and put into perspective with past F-35 reports, the gaps become gaping chasms and the document devolves to merely another example of the GAO ‘defense’ report archetype: a rather subjective, deeply flawed and--of course--superficial GAO product.

As with most GAO reports of this genre, this particular GAO product, ‘Incompetence’ comes to mind more than ‘malevolence’. Ultimately we cannot fault the GAO for attempting to audit and write about that which they know little, they do what they are told to do. But I do hold them responsible for their total pretension of authority and the Hybris they display in asserting their ignorance as authoritative.

We place a spotlight on the GAO’s most damning sins committed within this report. It will become readily apparent why this GAO product gained very little traction in the popular media once it was actually released: It confirms the beliefs of those who want the reports ‘findings’ to be true so they don’t really bother to critically review it, and the rest who care about the issue enough to take the time to really read and understand the content will just dismiss it. The majority of people simply remain disinterested. I happily observe that to date, with sporadic interest and promotion even by the lowest forms of media habitués (example: the Puffington Ho’s of this world), the report has not gathered much audience or furor.

There’s quite a bit the GAO missed in that ‘Comparison’ (P.2 and P. 12)

The following graphic appears twice in the report. Once in the front matter and once within the body proper. I’d say that makes the subject of the relative O&S costs of legacy aircraft to the F-35 one of their major ‘points’. I further assert they are completely bonkers if they think their reasoning and evidence supports, in any manner, the point they attempted to make—the point they expect others to believe.

GAO 2014 Comparison of Apples and Oranges

To paraphrase myself elsewhere:

Q1: Notice any aircraft type and associated costs missing from the list of aircraft being ‘replaced’?

Hint for those who need help: It starts with an "A" and ends with "-10".

So even IF this were an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison, the GAO did not count the right apples, and it looks like there are not even the right number of ‘legacy’ apples to be counted within the equation. I should not have to point out to anyone, that even if the GAO substituted the same number of aircraft, since they were not the same type and number of aircraft with the same mission lists in the same relative proportions, that the F-35 is replacing, any such ‘adjustment’ only introduces error.

Q2: Notice the different cost number sources for the F-35 compared to the 'others'?

The legacy aircraft listed have had a theoretical inflation added to their 2010 O&S costs and applied for the years shown (2036-2040—when peak numbers of F-35s will be operating) in the comparison. 

BUT on the other side of the comparison, the F-35 cost estimates are known--from previous reports and other publications (see page ‘XX’ footnote here for an example)--to include not only inflation, but to also include estimated Cost Growth ABOVE Inflation (CGAI). CGAI is another ‘guess’ that gets compounded (not just added) on top of the ‘guesstimated’ inflation, and can be expected to be part of F-35 program cost accounting until at least the baseline Block 3F configuration aircraft designs are finalized and/or fielded.

Given the crudeness of the GAO comparison, I seriously doubt the GAO was sufficiently thorough to also include CGAI in the legacy aircraft cost estimate. But even IF they did, they are still not comparing ‘apples-to-apples’. I’m not even the first one to observe this discrepancy BTW, for within the first leaked news of this document we find:

“A source close to the program pointed to this comparison as one example of how GAO was “comparing apples and oranges.” 

Quite true. TOO true.

More Content: More Missing Oranges.

This is not even real news. But it has been observed that whenever these sort of lame comparisons are made, those making the cost comparisons are particularly thorough in ignoring the fact that whatever F-35 costs are, they include the cost of more ‘content’ than legacy aircraft costs. For example, in testimony before the Senate just this year (pg 5) , it came out that for F-18 legacy aircraft, the Department of the Navy will need to keep buying some of the capabilities that are similar (but still less advanced) to the capabilities the F-35 already has just to keep F-18A-Ds relevant into the near future: 

In order to maintain warfighting relevancy in a changing threat environment, we will continue to procure and install advanced systems such as Joint Helmet-Mounted Cueing Systems (JHMCS), High Order Language (HOL) Mission Computers, ALR-67v3, ALQ-214v5, Multi-Function Information Distribution System (MIDS), APG-73 radar enhancements, Advanced Targeting FLIR (ATFLIR) upgrades, and LITENING for the Marine Corps on selected F/A-18A-D aircraft.

We observe now that for the F-35, there are several counterparts of the items listed in the testimony above, such as the Helmet Mounted Display System , as well as all the necessary sensors and targeting systems that are accounted for not only in the F-35 production costs, but also in the costs for the upkeep of same--captured as part of the F-35’s sustainment costs. For legacy aircraft, these sustainment costs for all the additional systems they need to operate, along with the external fuel tanks I might add, are relatively ‘hidden’: they are  accounted for on accounting ledgers that are separate from the host aircraft’s. These ‘hidden’ costs are not trivial.

Finally, the entire F-35 Autonomic Logistics Information System is in the F-35’s cost estimate as well. This system is a streamlined logistics support network, global in scope. Imagine the network support costs alone! NONE of the legacy systems’ support infrastructure is included in their O&S costs.

We could go further and expand the scope of comparison to total force employment costs. We could discuss how the F-35 is expected to require fewer mission support assets (transports, jamming aircraft, aerial refueling aircraft, etc) or talk about how the value of the F-35’s ‘stealth’ features certainly far outweigh the additional system support costs not found with non-low observable aircraft. But why bother? The cost comparison the GAO attempted fails within its own set boundaries.

GAO Shows Us Some Goodness…Was this some kind of a slip-up? (PP. 17-18)

Excerpt:

• Mean Flight Hours between Failures (Design Controllable) is the average amount of flight hours achieved before a design-controllable failure occurs. As of March 2014, this metric was progressing in that the number of flight hours before a failure occurs was increasing for all three variants. For example, the average flight hours between failures for the F-35A—the variant with the most flight hours to date—was 5.2 in March 2014, surpassing the expectation at its current flight hours by about 1.2 and growing toward its requirement at maturity of 6.0. Moreover, this was an increase of about 1.8 average flight hours between failures since September 2013, as reported by GAO.

I find how MFHBF(DC) was framed this time around ‘interesting’. This data is absolute “goodness”, but it is delivered so deadpan you’d hardly know it without reading it twice. The graphic the GAO used two years ago (Figure 9, pg 30) to then illustrate the F-35 being ‘behind’ in MFHBF (the ‘DC’ was left off in 2012) looked like this:

2012 GAO Report Chart of MFHBF (Really MFHBF(DC))

In the 2012 report, the GAO was all over this metric for all the variants as ‘lagging’. I noted at the time that it was a premature analysis.

This year, the positive performance for the same metric just gets a ‘paragraph’. Here’s the same MFHBF(DC) info from this report in a graph similar to back in 2012 when the GAO was more interested in selling a negative story. 

2014 GAO MFHB(DC) Data in Chart Format

Even though the metric indicates good reliability performance (ahead of where it is supposed to be at the point in time it was measured), it shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than in the past without more perspective and data behind it including knowledge of the long term trend. But guess what?

MFHBF(DC) 2012 & 2014 Data Merged 

Putting the 2012 and 2014 report data we get enough data to call it ‘better’ and to note the trend is—encouragingly--positive, so we can call this unquestionably good news. Keep the trend line (it is calculated and not simply drawn by the way) in mind for later use--when the GAO whips out a fallacious Appeal to Authority on us.

But we observe again that it is still ‘early’ in the grading period. The trend could reverse if ‘something’ pops up, though the longer the F-35 goes with a positive trend, the less likely something will pop up until it starts reaching its end of life at the other end of the ‘bathtub’ curve. We must remember that in June 2014, the fleet was only .085 (8.5%) complete towards maturation to be measured/graded at 200,000 flight hours. The data stops in March in this report, so it is based upon probably no more than 7% of flying hours towards maturity. 

Still, it is interesting -- mostly as an illustration to contrast how the GAO delivers information that supports their message and how they deliver that which doesn’t support the message.

In passing, I also add that in light of the positive news above, we should remember the manner in which the report was ‘leaked’ to gather negative headlines before the release, to support the mystery leaker’s purposes. That too is interesting.

Now try and remember what we’ve just covered and use it to judge the importance of what the GAO has to say about the next two metrics. It is particularly important to remember in light of what the GAO says about MFHBCF, which for the most part can be considered a SUBSET of the MFHBF and MFHBF(DC). I say ‘for the most part’ because MFHBCF can contain the results of induced (think self-inflicted) failures that are not "design controlled".

Enjoyed The Goodness?… It’s followed by drivel (PP. 17-18)

Excerpt:

•Mean Flight Hours between Critical Failures is the average amount of flight hours achieved before a failure occurs that results in the loss of a capability to perform a mission-essential function. As of March 2014, this metric was lagging well below its requirements at maturity, meeting an average of 42 percent of those requirements across all three variants.

“…this metric was lagging well below its requirements at maturity”? That is an interesting turn of the phrase there: as if it should be significant that it is not near full expected value, with only about 93% of the fleet flying hours missing and need to be flown before we are to actually ‘grade’ the performance. I view this as a logical parallel to berating a 10-year old for having not yet finished college.

So where is the MTBCF relative to where it was planned to be AT THIS EARLY POINT on the road to maturity? This info is curiously absent, given how past GAO reports made a big deal of being ‘below the curve’ when the data was even less meaningful. I strongly suspect it is no longer below the ‘should be’ curve because, among other reasons, the GAO conveniently leaves this information out.  In addition, there is absolutely ZERO significance to throwing out an ‘average’ MTBCF value that runs across all variants—each at different stages of maturity in their development. What are the values for each variant? Why did the GAO not tell us? Was the GAO trying to make a point without revealing something about a sensitive or classified program spec? I doubt it.

The relevant information we need, and yet the GAO does not provide (if they even know) is:

1. Where is the value compared to where it was predicted to be at this time? 
2. What is the trend?
3. Is the reason the value is ‘what it is’ understood?
4. Is there an adverse impact that needs to be eliminated/mitigated to meet the spec at ‘maturity’? 

The GAO has actually been boneheaded enough in the past to also raise a question in my mind as to even the significance of how they use the term MFHBCF itself. I question it, because as I noted above, MFHBCF is often a catchall that includes induced failures. It can also contain the effects of misdiagnosis of non-existent faults using not-yet-mature tech data: also known as normal ‘growing pains’ experienced in learning to operate and maintain the system.

What percentage of MFHBCF hits are the result of Airman Doofus breaking something or Lance Corporal Slacker not following repair direction correctly, or of either misinterpreting the troubleshooting directions? How about the aircrew botching his evolving, maturing checklists? A better measures to judge the reliability progress would be MFHBF(DC) as we saw above. As an aside, I suspect what the GAO means by MFHBCF is really “Mean Flying Hours Between Operational Mission Failure” (MFHBOMF). 

And AGAIN, we note (can’t repeat it enough) the F-35 fleet had accrued only about 7% of the total flying hours needed (where the reliability targets are supposed to be met) at the time the report’s data was collated, yet the GAO still has the temerity to assert that it was ‘only’ operating at an ‘average’ of 42% of the ‘maturity’ spec is (somehow) 'significant'? 

If the F-35s were really ‘breaking bad’ we’d hear about it from the pilots screaming about ‘availability’ and the maintainers about too many maintenance man-hours per flying hour (MMH/FH). We hear nothing about these performance metrics from the GAO. Surprise.

The GAO then brings up MTTR:

Mean Time to Repair is the average time it takes a maintainer to repair a failed component or device. Currently, this metric is not improving in that as flight hours increase, it is taking maintainers longer to repair failed components for the F-35A and F-35C, and the amount of time it takes to repair failed components for the F-35B remains unchanged. Specifically, GAO reviewed R+M growth curves provided by DOD showing the historical growth of this metric from 2009 for the F-35B and 2010 for the F-35A and F-35C to March 2014, and we observed that the metric is trending in the opposite direction of its predicted path for the F-35A and F-35C, and the metric is remaining steady, without improvement, for the F-35B.

I have suspected for some time higher MTTR was due to Outer Mold Line (OML) restoration cure times. If so, I would also suspect a good portion of that is driven by For Other Maintenance (FOM) actions. I still suspect it is a factor, but perhaps not as significant as I previously believed. What is nagging me is the missing commentary on Maintenance Man Hour Per Flight Hour (MMH/FH) numbers.

OML restoration would probably have a significant (but lesser) impact on the MMH/FH metric however. But with the GAO the norm is ‘no news is good news’. I therefore see missing complaints about MMH/FH as indicative of relatively lower OML restoration activity than I previously believed. The longer things go without us hearing about MMH/FH, the less I think OML restoration has a major impact. This has caused me to turn my thinking to new directions as to why the F-35 is experiencing higher than expected MTTR.  It now seems there are a couple of really interesting unknowns that could better explain the higher than desired MTTRs.

First there is the distribution of actual task repair times. IF the F-35 designers did a good job driving out all the typical ticky-tacky maintenance actions of the past, there would be fewer short duration maintenance events than seen on legacy systems, this would skew the average (Mean) repair time to the high side very quickly, not because more tasks were taking longer, but because longer tasks are harder to drive out of the equation. The MFHBF(DC) trend and the lack of details concerning MFHBCF would support this possibility. 

Second, I would be very interested in the internals of the data to see if there were discriminants by operating location and LRIP lot buys for each variant. I would expect Edwards, Eglin and Pax River to have more MTTR hours because they have more early jets ( how much planned mod activity is impacting this metric?) and/or are more aggressively trying to break the plane. But inversely, I would expect Yuma and Luke to have better numbers with the newer jets and more ‘operational-like’ environments than Eglin, Edwards or Pax River. Further, I would expect the Operational Test F-35s at any location to have even better numbers due to their flying of later LRIP jets and flying programs with a greater emphasis on more ‘operational’ maintenance paradigms.

There are also any number of reasons that the high MTTR could be deceptive or even unimportant. For all we know, it could even have nothing to do with the jet: some of this might be merely an issue with the maintenance process closeout and ALIS development/maturation (yes, I’ve done maintenance data collection: NO system is perfect). There is also the question of what percentage of this metric is also due to maintainers working on the plane when there is ‘No Fault Found’ or work caused by ‘Induced’ actions? We need the GAO to tease out the relevant bits if only to improve their own sorry analyses. But if they are going to highlight something as a problem in a public report, they need to let the public know the ‘whys’ behind the MTTR and MMH/FH data to justify their claims. That is, unless the purpose of the report is to just dupe and spin up the rubes. 

In passing, I note once again, knowledge of crew sizes would also be helpful. I suspect they too are meeting the F-35’s needs. 

If there were valid reasons to be concerned about the MTTR at this time, it would show up in the other data the GAO isn’t showing. What data the GAO does give us sufficient information on, doesn’t support the idea anyone should be concerned: the missing data needed to further evaluate the seriousness of the high MTTR hints at the MTTR as not being a serious problem at all. When the GAO is involved, I’ve consistently found that ‘absence of evidence IS indicative of ‘evidence of absence’. 

As it stands, even IF the F-35 does takes longer to fix than spec (and it very well could be even the spec was overly ambitious) then it only becomes important if it is failing too often (availability issue), or taking more manpower to fix (cost issue). Without knowing the relationship, which lets us determine actual availability and cost impacts, our knowing the MFHBCF and MTTR is pretty meaningless. It is however, something for the GAO to air out just so others can b*tch about it.

Does the GAO even know what ‘troubleshooting’ or ‘learning curve’ mean? (Pgs. 18-19)

For that matter, do they understand how ‘engineering’ works? As a long-time ‘tester’ this section cracks me up:

To identify some software issues as they arise, users in the field use an internal system to submit requests to the contractor, but these requests are submitted on an individual basis and may not always be addressed immediately as it takes time to determine whether the issue is related to hardware or software. For example, officials told us that the Electrical Optical Targeting System, which is used to track a target, continues to fail. In this instance, testers reported the problem, and officials attempted to improve the capability with hardware changes. However, not all issues with the Electrical Optical Targeting System were fixed with the hardware changes, and officials have decided to also try to address the issue with software changes, causing users to identify workarounds in the meantime. 

This is either illustrative of the GAO's general unfamiliarity with how troubleshooting and engineering is done OR how the GAO is oriented to bring up issues without any consideration or understanding as to the relevance of the problems they highlight. The GAO reports this bit as if the F-35 program was taking some kind of a 'hobby-shop' approach to solving the issue mentioned. If experience is any guide (and it usually is) the F-35 engineers probably 'racked and stacked' options to remedy the problem as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. In analyzing the options, it was probably determined that the hardware changes would be the most beneficial and easiest to employ, knowing all along that there was either a possibility OR certainty they would need to implement the software changes afterwards. Stating "officials have decided to also try to address the issue with software changes" makes employing standard engineering management tools sound like ad hoc (“try”) guesswork, and also tells me the GAO really has no idea how engineering works. Does the GAO understand that maturing fault isolation software involves learning what the faults look like and how they manifest in an operational system? Does the GAO realize that until the system is fielded, the knowledge will always be imperfect beforehand?
The GAO continued:

As another example, officials discussed instances in which the diagnostics system signals to a maintainer that the landing gear failed, but it was actually a sensor near the landing gear that failed. Because software for isolating these types of failures is not yet mature, operators and maintainers on the ground may continue to check the landing gear without discovering the sensor issue and reporting it. Finally, officials stated that with the release of the next increment of software in 2015, a number of new issues may arise, and these issues may be related to software because the new software includes new processors that can affect mission systems on the aircraft.

What the GAO is describing in the second half of the section concerning the ‘landing gear’ anecdote is what is usually thought of as a 'nuisance' software problem. It is standard (and sound) program management to triage your design (hardware or software) development issues so that the most important problems (those impacting flight safety are highest priority) are dealt with first. Without knowing how well the F-35 program as a whole is managing all the issues, singling out something like this is pretty pointless: it has no programmatic utility. It is, however a good scare story.

The GAO ‘Need More Control’ Over Tech Data Rant (Pgs 22-23)

It would be too much reading for most people, so I’m not going to post all the GAO’s ramblings lamenting the F-35 program tech data strategy. My response as to ‘why’ the lamentation is pernicious and only an invitation to trouble and more costs-- is long enough.

Bottom line: The F-35 program was undertaken using one strategy for tech data. In the last few years (and well after the F-35 program was started) the DoD has changed their preferred strategy. 

Now the GAO is b*tching about the F-35 program not being in ‘compliance’ with a newer strategy. The original F-35 strategy was to only pay for the tech data the F-35 operators and maintainers would actually use. Pretty smart huh? Unless you are working in certain parts of the USG and believe EVERYTHING should be under the direct control of the USG.

When the government decided to buy only the tech data they needed, it does not mean the rest of the tech data they desire is just sitting there for the asking. I doubt in most cases it even exists, much less is already in hands of the suppliers ready to go. And it most probably does not exist (yet) for the simple reason that no company these days can afford to expend effort on tasks that for which they are not contracted to deliver. The proprietary KNOWLEDGE needed to create the data exists in the hands of the suppliers, but there probably is no USG-grade (deliverable) tech data extant beyond what the F-35 Program is already paying for. 

On acquisition contract programs, the government: 

1. By law owns the data it pays to own under the contracts, 
2. Has limited rights to related contractor data that allows the USG to use that data for the DoD’s own purposes but cannot be shared with a third party, and 
3. May include a mechanism reserving rights to buy more data from the contractors that contains the tribal knowledge they want…but they still have to pay for it to be developed and delivered. 

To change the strategy NOW to buy more data would cost bigger bucks than anyone involved would ever be willing to talk about.  The GAO may get to whine about this for decades.  

If the F-35 program, GAO, or other agency managed to get a wild hair up the ‘nethers’ and insist the contractors produce data over and above that already agreed to be delivered, and then turn it over to the Government for free, It would cost the taxpayers even MORE money to settle the lawsuits (perhaps dozens that could last decades) over what would, in essence, be the USG compelling the contractors to turn over their property (proprietary data) for use by competitors. This information would not only allow those competitors to compete against the incumbent contractors using the incumbent’s own trade secrets on the F-35 program but also on any number of future competitions as well.  

If this GAO ‘whine’ gains political traction, it will be ‘Stupid’ on steroids.

Life Cycle O&S Cost B.S. (P. 24)

The most important thing to take away from this section is that the ‘huge’ O&S cost numbers being contrasted are:

1.  Costs over a “56 year operational life” and 
2.  Based upon premature and incorrect judgments being made as to the relevance of immature data. 

Let that sink in for a moment. What could go wrong in relying on ‘estimates’ ONLY a half-century into the future? (/sarc)

Could you see anyone in 1943 sitting down with a rational expectation they could characterize a reasonable (or even remotely credible) O&S cost estimate for the P-51 Mustang through to the year 19969? In decrying and calling for ‘resolving’ the 56 year O&S cost estimate ambiguity, the GAO is apparently seeking more certainty in their uncertainty. They aren’t looking for better information. They are looking for information they will feel better about.

As 'Neptune’ at F-16.net summarized:

GAO was mandated to review DOD's F-35 sustainment planning efforts... 

GAO recommends that DOD develop better informed affordability constraints… 

DOD concurred with all... 

and partially concurred with the recommendation… 

GAO continues to believe that the recommended analysis would provide a more comprehensive sense of the uncertainty in the estimates... 

It never hurts to have someone, else, to look over your "most favored" program…Glad to hear they can provide a more comprehensive sense of uncertainty…

Here’s my take on "Certainty".

If the GAO wants “certainty”, tell them to first have someone build them a time machine (they can write ‘reports’ about it too!), and then get back to us with their numbers when they return. Until the GAO can get that time machine fielded, then EACH, ANY and EVERY “56 YEAR” cost estimate that is produced isn’t just ‘uncertain’. It is a SWAG.

 

Are there no aviators in the GAO? Pg 26

In this particular report the GAO treats Fuel Burn Rates in cartoonish fashion, and from the first sentence it is clear they are working back from a conclusion to justify their 'uncertainty'.

•Fuel burn rates: The JPO and CAPE estimates do not use a reasonable assumption for the Marine Corps fuel burn rate across the life cycle of the aircraft. Both estimates use a fuel burn assumption of 1,493 gallons per flying hour for the Marine Corps variant. While the rate used in the estimates was calculated based on service-planned missions at maturity and DOD-validated physics-based models, this burn rate is an almost exact match of the burn rate being observed at the operational sites. This may be a reasonable assumption for the short term, but it is likely that the fuel burn rates will increase in the long term. The burn rate of 1,493 gallons per flying hour used in the JPO and CAPE cost estimates reflects fuel burn data from aircraft flown using limited capabilities—at slower speeds and at lower altitudes than the F-35 will eventually fly. After 2015, the Marine Corps is planning on using the aircraft’s increased capability, which will likely result in more fuel being used. In addition, shortly after 2015, the Marine Corps is planning on deploying the F-35 to ships, where the aircraft’s fuel-intensive vertical landing capability will be used more frequently, which will likely increase fuel usage. Consequently, the use of lower fuel burn rate across the entire life cycle of the Marine Corps variant is not a reasonable assumption.

Perhaps if the GAO took a broader view as to the possible factors affecting fuel burn rates?
Afterburning turbofan engines LIKE to fly faster and higher. Up to ~35-40K feet and about Mach .95, they tend to get more efficient the higher and faster they fly. The F-35, like all aircraft, is a design that is optimized to perform best in a bounded range of speeds and altitudes. If the F-35 is flying lower and slower now than it will be flying later, this suggests speed and altitude as drivers for LOWER fuel consumption in the future. I find it interesting that the GAO thinks it is worthy of observation that the DOD-validated physics models closely track actual data but then it discounts the model and methodology for future fuel consumption predictions. Did the GAO look at the internals of the model being used?
We should probably also note here, that as the F-35 F135 engine has a rather high thrust rating at military power (no-afterburner) relative to its thrust rating with afterburner, and the F-35 has been acknowledged as being able to ‘supercruise’ (by definition ‘without’ afterburner) some distance at around M1.2. Therefore, the F-35 fleet may spend less net flight time in afterburner than the legacy aircraft. It would also take very few seconds of reduced afterburner time to save more fuel than that burned at 'high' throttle settings (without afterburner) in STOVL mode. Maybe the F-35 will spend more time in AB if the pilots find it advantageous and eat up the fuel savings. Who knows until they get their hands on the jet in numbers?
While the GAO is specific as to one change that may increase fuel consumption: the short mission segment involving (sometimes) vertical landings. The GAOers are evidently oblivious to the relative effects of being able to spend significant percentages of flight hours at more economic fuel burn settings on the other side of the balance of things. Consequently, the GAO's dismissal of the possibility of lower fuel burn rates in the future was not a reasonable assumption. I think the GAO may have been alluding to more afterburner time in the future when they talk about speed, but the GAO did not specify afterburner time as the discriminant, and GAO’s crude approach to comparing fuel costs does not permit the needed granularity to compare costs anyway.

More Fuel Fun (Pg 27)

The GAO wasn't done with this bone yet:

Similarly, the JPO estimate lowered its fuel burn rate assumption to 1,480 gallons per flight hour from 1,558 gallons per flight hour for the Air Force variant. However, the Air Force stated that the more conservative assumption of 1,558 gallons per flight hour should be used across the life cycle because the F-35 has yet to use its full flight capabilities, weapons, or mission systems, which will likely increase the fuel burn rates in the long term. The higher fuel burn rate assumption for the Air Force would represent a $4.0 billion cost increase in base year 2012 dollars across the life cycle of the aircraft.

This comes closer to making sense, if the implication is that the AF's F-35s will be flying at higher weights and yanking-and-banking than it currently does. But even IF the USAF's ~5.27% higher than the program's estimate of total fuel consumption is a ‘better’ estimate, it may not be ‘right’ either. It all depends upon how closely the internal model ground rules and assumptions will match future use. There is also a VERY good chance both models make incorrect (and high) assumptions as to afterburner use. 
Finally, the amount of fuel burned isn’t nearly as important as the cost of fuel burned, and not all fuel ‘costs’ the same; cost depends largely on delivery method and location. With typical planned F-35 payloads, carried internally, the range without refueling is comparatively longer than the legacy aircraft it is replacing for all the variants. This indicates less fuel will be delivered by mid-air refueling than for legacy aircraft the F-35 is replacing. Fuel delivered by aerial refueling was shown (circa 2001) to cost about 13.8 TIMES the cost of refueling via ground refueling (Pg. 8).

I imagine fuel delivery via ship lies somewhere in between ground and air delivery, and probably closer to ground refueling since it is moved and delivered in greater bulk than by air. But my point is made: it’s not the number of gallons that is important. What is important is the cost of the gallons delivered. Just something for the GAO to consider for their next SWAG.

The absolute bottom line on the fuel story is that the GAO did not present proper justification for their assertion that “The JPO and CAPE estimates do not use a reasonable assumption for the Marine Corps fuel burn rate across the life cycle of the aircraft”. Additionally, the GAO including the statement of “ the Air Force stated that the more conservative assumption of 1,558 gallons per flight hour should be used across the life cycle because the F-35 has yet to use its full flight capabilities, weapons, or mission systems, which will likely increase the fuel burn rates in the long term” should be a clear indication that there is great ambiguity in any long-term estimate of future fuel use. The AF position makes sense, if the implication is that the AF's F-35 s will be flying at higher weights than it currently does and nothing else changes. But even if the USAF's ~5.27% higher than DoD's estimate of total fuel consumption is a better estimate, it may not be right either depending upon internal model ground rules and assumptions. There is a VERY good chance both models make incorrect (on the high side) assumptions as to afterburner use. 
However, it appears the main objectives of the GAO to include this point it is to use it to question the USMC’s fuel estimates and to warn “The higher fuel burn rate assumption for the Air Force would represent a $4.0 billion cost increase in base year 2012 dollars across the life cycle of the aircraft.” I particularly enjoy the GAO’s penchant for obfuscating cost impacts by rolling them up into the largest possible numbers over the longest possible times. The “$4.0 billion” figure is a good example. $4.0 billion over 56 years is a very small number when thought in terms of cost per aircraft per day. I expect it to be even smaller than the savings to be had from the fuel consumption reduction that will come from the progressive engine improvements already in planning.


Why do I expect it?
In July, A Pratt and Whitney official was reported on as saying some very interesting things:

Mr. Croswell said Pratt & Whitney also is starting to explore how to upgrade the F135 powerplant in coming years. "We see real opportunities to continue to improve the F135 over time," he said. Fuel consumption could be cut 7% by around 2020 and a combined 15% to 20% around five years later, he said. The life of the engine could be increased around 50% within the next decade, he said. Those effort could be a key element in the wider push within the F-35 program to cut the long-term costs of the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program. (link)

Yeah, that probably explains why the program's internal fuel estimates aren't as high as the others, but don’t tell the GAO. To them the world is static. Planned and programmed change  just sounds like “crazy talk” as far as they’re concerned.

Part Replacement: The GAO really goes off the rails (Pg.28)

This is where the GAO really displays a lack of knowledge, And they do it SO effusively...

Part replacement:The JPO estimate does not include reasonable assumptions for part replacement. Based on data from the Air Force and Marine Corps F-35 variants at testing and operational sites, parts are being replaced, on average, 15 to 16 times more frequently than the assumptions used.

The GAO report makes no case for the first sentence, and the second sentence is Garbage Out as the result of Garbage In. Their characterization of the data they present is so awful I find it hard to believe any ill intent, but I also find it not hard at all to observe that analytically, they are WAY out of their depth. What the GAO shows us immediately after the passage above is that they improperly correlate ‘part removals’ to ‘failure rate’ Nothing could be further from the truth.
The GAO confounds Mean Time Between Removals (MTBR) with time between failures. They presume that all ‘part removal’ was due to a failure (reliability issue) and then it was replaced with a different part. The table the GAO showed provides some insight as to what the list is really about, and it isn’t just about failure rates.

Sorry, Removal Rates Do Not equal Failure Rates

‘Removal rates’ include a variety of ‘causes’ that have nothing to do with reliability or failures.
The GAO ignores that possibility (more like probability in some cases) that the same removed part was reinstalled for any of several reasons. Most likely among those reasons are to get at another part (For Other Maintenance’ or FOM) or to perform a precautionary inspection or correct a miss-installation (Ejection Seat Module?). Since the program is actively bringing early LRIP jets into baseline Block 3 configurations, it should be no surprise if this list contains parts removed to be upgraded and replaced by a previously upgraded part (HMD system?).
I would also note here that the ‘multiples of times than expected’ figures themselves are almost certainly misleading for at least some components. The given time frame for the removals was from March 2013 to March 2014. As the removal rates are in flight hours, using the F-35’s ‘Fast Facts’ updates for source data (March 2013 Here and February 2014 Here, both in PDF) we see the entire fleet flight hours for that timeframe was about 6000 or so flight hours. The F-35 A and B model flight hours would be some subset of the 6000+ hours. If any of those components listed has a high predicted MFHBR rate and only handful of them are removed for any reason, the ‘multiples of times’ could be very high though the number of actual removals for were small.       

Even IF the GAO’s list of removals actually reflected failure data (which it doesn’t) they still wouldn’t be correct in assuming them as representative of the entire F-35 system reliability. They would be basing their conclusions on just data for the current high drivers, and extrapolating it to effects on the entire aircraft. It is one thing to pick a small sample, it is another thing to pick a pseudo-random sample, and yet another thing altogether to pick ALL items intentionally only because they are the ‘high drivers’.
In doing so the GAO effectively ignores the removal rate of perhaps several hundred (at least and perhaps a thousand at most) components when they admit that they looked at fewer than 200 of the ‘high drivers’ for each of the F-35A and F-35B models. As far as overall reliability, the impact of the reliability of the components that are NOT failing at ‘higher multiples’ could easily outweigh the impact accounted for in evaluating the high drivers the GAO cherry-picked for the report.

Ummm...About those component ‘costs’

The ‘costs’ presented caught my eye first when looking at the table above. They are clearly unit costs, but when a part is actually failed, then unit cost for replacement is only suitable when the component is non-reparable. Looking at the list, and based upon unit cost, I would estimate only one, perhaps two of the components on this list would normally be non-reparable. The number of spares required to cover the repair items in the pipeline would cost as much as the numbers provided but the number of spares would be a very small number compared to the number of actual repairs over the same timeframe and is dependent upon repair turnaround time and transport/processing time. Some small percentages of failures would require scrapping and replacement, but the rest would have repair costs that would be only fractions of the replacement costs. So even if all the parts removed were repairs, the implication that the costs the GAO presented were relevant to their costs conclusions is hogwash.

The Curious Case of the Fallacious Appeal to Authority (P. 29)

The GAO attempts to wrap this section up in some semblance of authority but fails miserably:

However, according to officials from the Institute for Defense Analysis, who conducted a study of the F-35’s R+M for DOT&E, the F-35 program would have to achieve a higher reliability-growth improvement rate than has been observed in almost all other aircraft in order to meet the anticipated reliability by 2020. As a result, it is likely that the depot maintenance hourly cost used in the JPO’s 2013 estimate is not a reasonable assumption. As previously stated, reliability improvement efforts are under way that could reduce these costs, but it is unlikely that these efforts will bring significant results in the near term because the current F-35 fleet must be modified into the configuration necessary for reliability improvement.

Treating a DOT&E sponsored ‘analysis’ by IDA (by the way I’m familiar with a bomber ‘study’ IDA did once that stunk so bad it got buried before the ink was dry) as somehow more authoritative is a form of fallacious appeal to authority. The GAO’s preferred source is in disagreement with the JSFPO’s source. this is an area where experts can be expected to disagree. So What? It doesn’t make the GAO’s pet ‘authority’ any more authoritative than the JSFPO’s sources, but it sure does make the GAO’s favored pet farther away from the data, experience and knowledge base needed to understand it. The trend line we noted above for MFHBF(DC) certainly doesn't support the GAO's Doubting Thomases. Therefore, we can conclude disagreement between the two sources certainly doesn’t warrant the GAO’s specious conclusion: 

As a result, for the next 10 years, the F-35 fleet will not represent the configurations necessary for reliability-growth improvement.

One of These is Not Like the Others (Pg. 30)

The GAO now declares:

To develop its hourly cost, the JPO used F-16 data from Lockheed Martin contractors that had been adjusted for the F-35. According to the JPO’s current assumptions, materiel costs would be 30 percent of the labor costs, but data for the AV-8 and F/A-18 depot inductions used in the previous year’s estimate indicate that depot induction materiel costs have historically been closer to 45 percent of labor costs.

Here the GAO reveals its ignorance about what aircraft depots do and how they work. All depots are not all the same. The 'Depot' type and activities are determined by the aircraft requirements. The first thing that comes to mind in reading this passage is to wonder if the GAO is aware as to how material-intensive the F-18 and AV-8 depot operations are here at the end of their service lives? Think structural repairs for starters, and obsolescing components follow in thought. Is the GAO aware of the different types of Depot maintenance? That is to say: The F-18A-D and AV-8B have entirely different depot constructs than the F-35, but the F-35 has the same depot construct as the F-16.

Fortunately, I did an in-depth aircraft depot maintenance analysis a couple of years ago and so I DO know the differences (see figure below) and can explain them to you.

Know Your Depot Types and Activities

There are currently three major types of U.S. fighter aircraft ‘depot’ operations. Depot activity may be conducted at one of the Military Service Depots, or they may occur ‘in the field’. The Department of the Navy conducts Periodic Maintenance Intervals (PMIs) as shown. A simple explanation as to what occurs during a PMI is that ‘discovery’ repairs are completed when discrepancies are found during the inspections, aircraft are upgraded to the latest configurations and structural durability (life) modifications are performed. In addition, selective preventative maintenance is performed to ensure reliability (Reliability Centered Maintenance). It can easily be shown that the F-18A-D has lately required increased maintenance attention in the field and up to the depot level, and the GAO itself knows it is no different for the AV-8B.

As the PMIs of the Navy Fighters are ‘maintenance’ centered, so is the F-15’s Programmed Depot Maintenance. There is a lot of programmed maintenance for the F-15, and I suspect it is getting even more attention these days.

These other depots are designed to perform regular maintenance actions. Programmed maintenance  however, IS NOT part and parcel with depot work for the F-16 paradigm, which is the Modification or 'Mod' Depot. By ‘chance’ (I joke) would have it, the Mod Depot is the construct for the F-35. That’s right, the F-16 and F-35 Depots are for performing modifications to the aircraft, because the airplanes themselves are designed such that regular PDM/PMI is not necessary. The Mod Depots still perform the extraordinary and discovery repairs as needed, but these are O&S costs over and above the ‘depot’ costs. They’re still accounted for, but in a different ‘pot’ of money. The GAO should have at least known how depots differ if they were going to attempt to draw a credible line around depot costs.

I will offer one 'depot' consideration for the GAO to factor into their next quest for “certainty in their uncertainty”. And that is they should keep a watchful eye out for changes to the F-35B and C depot constructs to more closely fit the Navy depot mold versus the Navy adapting their depots to the planes they work on. I say this because, 1) it is the Navy we’re talking about, and 2) the overarching driver in timing and durations of PMI activity for naval aircraft is the timing and workup to full readiness in order to support planned ship deployments rather than to meet the aircraft requirements themselves. It is a Navy-unique ‘cost of doing business’ .

Therefore, when the GAO concludes…

“As a result, it is likely that the depot maintenance hourly cost used in the JPO’s 2013 estimate is not a reasonable assumption.”

…simply because they prefer F-18 and AV-8 depot cost numbers over the F-16 numbers as a planning basis, even though the F-16 depot construct is closer to the F-35's construct, they are most certainly talking out of their a**.

We left some small stuff on the table, but I think we've now adequately covered the GAO's flailing about in their desire to 'feel good about their uncertainties'. Good night!

Bonus Fun

If you want to hear the GAO bray about their ‘watchdog’ role, catch this short podcast on this report. The transcript is there, but in the podcast you get to hear the Valley Girl (Imitation?)interviewer grilling her words away as she questions the interviewee-- a seriously earnest, if hapless, protector of the American taxpayer.
It's a hoot.

Note: minor changes made 5 Nov. for clarity, readability, and in defiance of Bill Gates; spellchecker.