I Believe the First Hit Piece Against the LRS-B Has Been Written

It looks like the 'Faux Reform' crowd has begun the long campaign with a 'retrospective'-themed hit piece on he B-2 as part of the wind-up.

It's typical 'Bloomberg' garbage. With a title like: "Almost Nobody Believes the U.S. Air Force Can Build an Affordable Bomber" * , how could it not be? I notice that those non-believers visited in the article have zilch long-range strike credentials. You don't often see the 'bandwagon' fallacious argument brazenly (stupidly?) combined with a fallacious appeal to authority right up front in the title, but there it is... 

*Note, 1 June 15: Craptastic Bloomberg site changed the links and memory-holed the comments since post was put up. Link changed to go to the Bloomberg piece again...for now. 

There's only a few non-misleading bits, such as... 

“There’s already the usual suspects out there telling us that we don’t need this or it won’t work,” Major General Garrett Harencak, assistant chief of staff for strategic deterrence and nuclear integration, said at an Air Force Association breakfast in January. The new bomber “will be affordable and it’s desperately needed,” he said.

...buried at random amid the otherwise unrelenting drivel oozing from old and new "usual suspects",

Here's the 'B-2 history' graphic found at the link with corrections to make it 'true', or at least a hell of a lot truer than the 'B.S.' concocted by the article's 'author' David Lerman.

The Bloomberg 'piece' is "Punk Journalism" at it's finest.

And of course, it's all part of the plan:

Lerman's new enough to the game that I would probably categorize him as a "Grubber". If he wakes up to how he's been 'played' and resists from here on out, then he can be seen as a 'Former Pawn'. Otherwise we could be seeing an emerging Loyal Babbler.

The One DOT&E, er DoD SAR Quote You Probably Won't See Anywhere Else

Now with Don Bacon! 
(As in Corrected, Updated and Bumped with Hat Tip to Same)

Don't expect the Punk Journalists, Loyal Babblers, or Faux Reformers (abetted by Punk Journalists) to bother with putting proper perspective around all their little doomsday accounts of what is going on inside the F-35 program. Remember, its all about either trying to kill a program and/or coming up with enough rent money. "P.A.C.E." is the vehicle that they'd drive off the cliff before they'd ever move away from it.

So there is one DOT&E DoD Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) quote out of all the reports and testimonies that comes out of the unexpurgated December 2014 (for 2015) DOT&E Report DoD SAR that I don't see anyone pushing out to the uneducated masses anytime soon. It is the final paragraph of the report's Executive Summary, Page 10:

In summary, the F-35 program is showing steady progress in all areas – including development, flight test, production, maintenance, and stand-up of the global sustainment enterprise. The program is currently on the right track and will continue to deliver on the commitments that have been made to the F-35 Enterprise. As with any big, complex development program, there will be challenges and obstacles. However, we have the ability to overcome any current and future issues, and the superb capabilities of the F-35 are well within reach for all of us. 

Everything else in the media that surrounds the F-35/DOT&E, DoD SAR, GAO, blah ,blah, blah, reportage is about either rallying the mouth-breathers or herding the sheep.

About the Update: I had meant to identify the report I linked to as the SAR, but let myself get in a hurry and used the incorrect reference at the link that originally led me to the document instead. My 'bad', but it doesn't change the essence of the post or the point either. This update exists because I loathe inaccuracies, even mine and no matter how they are identified.
If anything, the quote is more relevant to my point coming from the SecDef Office SAR than the DOT&E annual report:

Reuters & Lockheed Martin: Pick a Headline, Any Headline

Separate the Hacks from the Pros

'Reuters': Hacktastic 

I did my usual Google for F-35 news this AM and spotted a Reuters article about LockMart's quarterly earnings. Fine. What caught my eye first was the graphic:

  
I noted the title only in passing.

This evening I repeated the search, and saw the same graphic, only there was also a different headline attached:

 I went looking for the first headline and found it at Business Insider with a short blurb instead of an article (source of the first graphic above) but still attributed to Reuters:

:
Here's a bigger shot of tonight's article:

So what gives? Did a new quarterly report revision/update come out?

Nahhhhh.........

It just took Reuter's editorial staff a little time to decide how the wanted to report the news. How is everyone else reporting it?...

 

I see sides drawn here. 

The electronic rags the 'bizness' types follow seem to take the positive bent. The yellow journalism ratholes pick the negative. 

Note that while "sales rose", "earnings were weak", but the LM folks 'beat' the estimates (which is what you always want to do), and the F-35 has 'higher' demand. 

Note: There is an unusual factor involving an accounting change due to tax law changes (surprise) that moves money from one column to another and shifts the earnings downward. It's affecting a lot of companies. [sarc] I'm certain Reuters explains it rationally in their 'revised' article [/sarc]

Full disclosure: To the best of my knowledge I own ZERO Lockheed Martin Stock, but some may be in some fund or another that is managed for me.  

Loyal Babblers, Pawns, Fellow Travelers, and the Old Guard Losers of the ‘Military Reform Machine’

How to tell who the Faux Military Reform Players are and the name of the ‘Show’… Since they won’t give you the REAL program.

Like many, I frequently begin the day perusing the web over coffee. One of the things I often check for these days is ‘breaking news’ about the F-35. My main interest in keeping on top of the F-35 story has little to do with my past or current associations with the program (contrary to the Crack Circumstantial Ad Hominem Suicide Brigade’s belief). I expect soon I will be shifting to the next big ‘target’ of anti-defense crowd: the Next Gen LRS program just because it will BE the big target like the F-35 today.

Usually, the legionnaires of F-16.net manning their remote keyboard outposts around the globe have the ‘latest and greatest already posted’ before I’m even awake, and I need go no further to find a trailhead for the day’s trek through F-35 Newsdom. Sometimes though, I’ll just ‘Google’ “F-35 News”. Early yesterday just the other day that tactic yielded a ‘jackpot’ of sorts. I’ve been working on a “transonic acceleration” post in the little free time I can find, and will have it up eventually, but I’ve had a post on the back-burner even longer looking for just the right platform on which to roll it out. Today, er Yesterday, I mean TWO THREE FOUR days ago was “THE DAY”… (Delay explained in blub at end of post)

Brad Plummer
'Serious' (Just not when
it comes to "Defense") 

The Great Google spit this article out right at the top yesterday that morning. It’s a pretty vapid lamentation, written by some tech-deficient ‘writer’ named Brad Plumer. The article is titled “This military program lost 100 times as much money as Solyndra — yet no one talks about it”. The article has since begun descending to its rightful place in the deepest depths of Google anonymity. It is also hardly worth mentioning anything in detail about the ‘piece’: Brad does a lousy job trying to draw an analogy between the F-35 program cost increases to Obama’s Poster-Child-for-Crony-Capitalism, aka “Solyndra!”, and he loses all credibility when he reveals he based his overwrought title on an Atlantic ‘piece’ by James Fallows (introduced in some detail to regular readers here), opening with:

James Fallows has a long, excellent essay in this month's Atlantic….

That is our first clue….that Brad doesn’t have one.

I say Brad’s title was “overwrought” because, to quote ‘Brad’, “Fallows estimates that taxpayers could end up losing 100 times as much money on the F-35 as they did on Solyndra”. Annnnd…to quote Brad quoting Fallows:

Total cost overruns, losses through fraud, and other damage to the taxpayer from the F-35 project are perhaps 100 times that great, yet the "Solyndra scandal" is known to probably 100 times as many people as the travails of the F-35.

Setting aside unsupported allegations of ‘fraud’, in what reality do “estimates” and “perhaps” translate into a definitive statement of fact, ESPECIALLY when drooled out of Fallows' pie-hole? To be fair, ‘Brad’ probably had an editor write the title – writers often suffer the editor's imprimatur. If so, then Brad’s editor is a worthless producer of Bulls***. Brad is a worthless producer of Bulls*** for writing the rest of the worthless ‘article’. From his portfolio of writing, it appears Brad has his own agenda for using Fallows ‘piece’ in his interpretive dance-cum-journalism routine. If so, that makes Brad an “Opportunist” and a “Fellow Traveler”. In the ‘Reformer’ sense he is merely a “Pawn” but he could with time work his way up to "Loyal Babbler" if he minds his manners (more on these characterizations later). But Brad’s electronic effluence is only the quick first stop on this journey.

Next Stop: Fallows’ Epic Cultural Hit Piece

James Fallows: Boy Speech 

Writer for the second worst 

President in my life-time 

has parlayed that gig into 

quite a career promoting 

bad ideas. One of Thomas 

Sowell's 'Intellectuals: 

Believes Inconsequential 

Knowledge should have

Consequential application.

So we follow Brad’s link to Fallow’s Atlantic ‘editorial’, where he re-sows some ground in his ‘fallow’ field of left-wing fantasy. This one is ostensibly about an America ‘disconnected’ from its military. He could have titled it ‘An Aging Leftist Regrets His Kind Do Not Enlist’. There’s all kinds of falderal inside the margins. Here’s a short list of Fallows’ most typical foibles that I would feel remiss if I let go by without pointing the reader to them.

1. Fallows expresses a wonderment that the percentage of people who are immediate relations to a (I presume living) veteran has dropped:

Among older Baby Boomers, those born before 1955, at least three-quarters have had an immediate family member—sibling, parent, spouse, child—who served in uniform. Of Americans born since 1980, the Millennials, about one in three is closely related to anyone with military experience.

Yeah, Total War for 5 years (1940-45 counting the call-ups in 1940, 0r 1941-1946 counting the time it took to return home – your choice) and an active ‘draft’ that ran right up to the early 70s will artificially raise the average until a few years past those factors fading won’t it? Want to feel more connected to the ‘Military’ Fallows? Move to a Red State. Then shed every silly Fascist urge you may feel a) to champion America’s return to a military ‘draft’ or b) that doing so would be ‘good for America’.

2. Fallows weaves a tale of cultural media (film, electronic and print publishing) ‘shifts’ in attitudes towards the military and how it is portrayed by the media. He provides enough cultural comparisons between days of yore and now to make the point but yet does so without ever observing that the shift is entirely due to today’s media and entertainment industries being controlled by the Left, not to mention carries the Left’s water on all things anti-military. But of course, if he did, he would be tacitly admitting his own complicity in attempts to ‘manage reality’ wouldn’t he?

3. Fallows drags up the ‘Missed-It-By-This-Much-Darn-You-Gary-Hart-Libido Reformer’: William S. Lind. Lind’s (keeping with the 'hyphenizin') much-debated-at-one-time-and-still-generally-seen-as-‘derivative’ Fourth Generation Warfare ‘shtick’ is used thusly: l

The most curious thing about our four defeats in Fourth Generation War—Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan—is the utter silence in the American officer corps. Defeat in Vietnam bred a generation of military reformers … Today, the landscape is barren. Not a military voice is heard calling for thoughtful, substantive change. Just more money, please.

Perhaps the (asserted) utter silence in the ‘officer corps’ is more due to the widespread knowledge that the cockup ain’t with the military Mr. Lind, but with the ‘political class’ of which you and Fallows belong. The political class these days behave as self-annointed Archons of ‘truth’ with presumptive rights to define reality for the rest of us. The ‘Political Class’: the ones that Goldwater-Nichols’ed the military a generation ago. In Lind’s case here, he attempts to obfuscate what has really been occurring since the latest President took office: a retread of the Left’s canned ‘Vietnam’ strategy. That is the one that illustrates there is no military ‘Victory!’ the American military can secure that the Political Left will not turn into a political defeat if given the chance.

Full disclosure: There's a lot of Lind's stuff I like (see here). It's just that none of it has to do with 'defense'.

Oh, and Lind’s old meal-ticket Gary Hart (as part of his political rehabilitation?) makes a return from exile in an appearance later in Fallows’ dump.

Lind’s contribution actually seems a little out of place, as much of Fallows’ complaints seem pointed at the politicians and ‘Mericunizm in general. But the cognitive dissonance of lamenting a lack of ‘military reformers’ when ‘political reform’ is what is needed is…. palpable.

Fallows’ and Lind’s problem in selling this ‘stuff’ is that there is too much information and too many sources to get the information from for the gatekeepers to control the ‘message’ like they did the first time they hit the scene. Too bad for them.

Franklin C. 'Chuck' Spinney.

Good with 'Cost', lousy with 

'Value' 

Fallows, as a ‘Loyal Babbler’, continues to roll out nearly all the still-active Old Guard Faux-Reformers from his National Defense days. (If you must read it, please check it out at your local library or buy it used will you?) Besides Lind, he treats us to a mention of Chuck Spinney, whose fabulous (as in ‘fable’) “Defense Facts of Life: The Plans/Reality Mismatch” briefing book got him a TIME magazine cover once. Too bad his analysis sucked then and it still sucks now. I keep a marked-up copy of a ‘Westview Press’ edition in a binder because if I marked up the original the way it needed to be, I couldn’t read it. You could pick about any page number and I’d tell you where he was most ‘wrong’ on it, but IMHO most of his ‘sins’ derive from three fatal flaws. The first is a total lack of understanding of ‘complexity’ (origins, drivers, effects), The second was complete discomfort with not knowing the unknowable before it can become knowable. That boy had a textbook “High Motive for Certainty” and probably does still. The third was Spinney’s analysis relying on assuming the U.S. economic conditions at the time (particularly the high inflation rates) were “the” reality relevant to future spending, and then using them in his ‘projections’. From where I’m standing, Spinney suffers from a life-long and over-inflated concern for ‘costs’ with, like most of the ‘Reform’ blowhards, a vestigial (at best) grasp of the greater concept we call ‘value’.

Full Disclosure: I have a ‘bias’ when it comes to ‘Cost Analysts’. I do combat and logistics operations analysis (mostly the latter these days). It’s a side gig that I get ‘called in’ on now, but it once was my main job. One of my great professional frustrations has been when I have to closely deal with cost analysts for any length of time. They’re usually good people (like most people) and they do a job I would never want to do. The problem is they seem to rarely have the depth of technical experience needed to understand all the cost drivers they attempt to characterize, and I end up spending an inordinate amount of time every occasion I do deal with them just 1) keeping them for declaring something they’ve done in the past as ‘equivalent’ or 2) getting them to understand a nuance to a cost driver that took me or somebody else years to distill properly. Almost invariably, I’ve found myself presenting and standing behind my technical analysis including the explicit, and clearly-defined caveats, but having to explain some ‘hidden’ or overly abstract cost element on something that the cost analysts accepted and treated as somehow ‘real’ without bothering to caveats. It is almost as if the cost estimates become real dollars in their minds, and it is an affliction that is too often shared by some managers—it’s not a good ‘synergy’ when they get together.

Ricks: Long Time 'Go To'

Guy for getting the 'Reformist'

Propaganda out to the public.

There’s also a cameo appearance by semi-retired ‘Loyal Babbler’ Thomas E. Ricks. But more significantly, there is a ‘Reformer’ presence that isn’t explicit but it is clearly sitting there to anyone familiar with the subject. This unattributed ‘Reformer’ presence is of particular interest and will be used to wrap up this dissection of Fallow’s Fallacies. It is important because it can be clearly shown as the basis for the fallacious representation of reality: using gross oversimplification to dupe the unaware. It didn’t require particular insight to tickle out the fraudulence, as some of it has been used before by the ‘Reformers’. Specifically, there is not one but two presentations containing the same data (a graphic and a similar representation adapted for the embedded video) sourced from POGO (or were sourced TO POGO by Fallows? –whichever direction, the link is there). The data was used by CDI/POGO’s point man, Winslow Wheeler, a few years ago for much the same purposes, and I caught it that time as well.

Winslow Wheeler: CDI
Ringmaster at POGO

Wheeler and CDI/POGO fingerprints are all over Fallows’ craptastic article. As a bonus, Dina Rasor, founder of POGO and now running the high-grade idiocy collector and low-grade information dissembler called ‘Truthout’ (won’t link to it. Yeccchhh!), links to the Fallows video from their Buzzflash feed. 

The only guy missing from this Old Guard Faux Reform ‘all-star’ production seems to be Pierre Sprey.

Here is the graphic from the Fallows piece:

 Source: The Atlantic

This is a fraudulent (intentional or not) mishmash of unsourced (but largely traceable) numbers posing as ‘facts’ that is used in such a cavalier manner by Fallows et al. The acquisition costs are meaningless without knowing the fiscal year dollars involved, and comparing aircraft that do not perform the same mission is folly anyway. This chart is a typical 'fool the innumerate' propaganda that regularly comes out of the Faux Reform camp. The interesting thing to me here is the perverse representation and comparison of operating costs across aircraft types, especially the bit about:

“…the efficient A-10 Warthog has the lowest per-flight-hour cost, because it needs so little maintenance—yet the military plans to phase it out. The F-35, which was supposed to bring new efficiency to plane design, costs five times as much per plane and three times as much preflight hour.”

One must presume the target audience has no idea of the differences in the full-up capability between the two airplanes, among many other factors (perhaps a topic for the future?) that make such a comparison ludicrous.I slapped some of this ‘operating cost per flying hour’ horses*** down when Wheeler trotted it out the first time.  

POGO conveniently provides an updated version of the data Wheeler misrepresented at the time and it, along with all of the other operating cost data now shown by Fallows deserves the exposure it is about to receive. No direct link, but here's a screen capture showing how to get it:

The data Wheeler and Co. use is (ostensibly) from the Air Force itself. We have no reason to suspect otherwise. However, we have very good reason to call out the representation of the data as “highly-misleading”. This ‘data’ seems to be subject to annual exploitation by POGO/CDI now. Emerging (not fully 'conditioned' yet) Loyal Babbler Mark Thompson used it in March 2013 at Time’s 'Babbleland'. Wheeler and Pierre Sprey (Hey, he made it to the dance after all!) also rolled out the same meme in early 2014 (Google “Chuck Hagel’s A-10 Legacy”- I won’t link to that place if I don’t have to), where they did a Kaleidoscope-on-reality in a number of ways via the now-standard Reformer non-sequiturs. The only value of the article here is that it identifies the AF Comptroller’s office as the source. 

 Again, I have no problems at this time with the numbers Wheeler/POGO use: just the nefarious way in which they use it. 

The Numbers in the Fallows’ Atlantic ‘Cost’ Graphic

Now that we have identified just how widely and frequently this cost ‘scare tactic’ is deployed, let’s return our focus on this specific invocation: Fallows’ using sketchy O&S cost numbers that even if they were ‘correct’ are used in a way designed to mislead the public.

First, the only operating cost data shown above in the Fallow's graphic that we can trace to the same source and characterized in the same way as Wheeler’s 2011 hit piece is the B-2 and the V-22 (Note: The only rational explanation for the V-22 numbers that Fallows uses are if they are for the AF Special Operations Command CV-22s in 2011). The rest of Fallow’s numbers could have been randomly pulled from anywhere EXCEPT ‘an official source’ with the same provenance/ timeframe as what Wheeler used. Here's some of the big stuff missing from Fallow's graphic:

Dear James Fallows and the Atlantic: Sharing Numbers without Context is NOT DATA

As the inclusiveness of cost accounting has broadened over the decades, the Faux Military Reformers strived to exaggerate weapon system cost increases in an attempt to misshape public perceptions on ‘Defense’ and ‘Defense Spending’ in particular. One of the tactics of the Leftist Anti-Defense ‘activists’ has been to present the Operations & Support (O&S) Costs of a weapon system in terms of ‘Cost in Dollars Per Flight Hour’. When costs are presented in this manner, the unwary Public is left with the perception that it costs the Taxpayer these dollar amounts EVERY time, and for every hour these systems operate. In reality, these amounts include dollars that are spent whether the aircraft fly or not, dollars that have no direct connection to the weapon systems or their operation, and dollars that would be spent if there were no weapons systems present just to have the ability to support a weapon system. The dollars sourced from POGO contain every operational cost element listed in the graphic below as noted:

Everything except the Kitchen Sink. Well...actually that's in there too.

If you get the Excel spreadsheet from POGO, there are other cost numbers you may be interested in. 

Since Fallows’ Atlantic piece, another arm of The Atlantic media machine has spit out a screed titled "The F-35 Has to Phone Home Before Taking Off" (really), repeating out-of-date information as if it were somehow relevant to the F-35 ALIS system's current state. This was done when with only a modicum of journalistic inquiry, the issue could have been shown to be past.

Patrick Tucker, who wrote the piece had to reach past all current news, pushing newer well known developments out of the way to retrieve his moldy chunk of information ‘cheese’. From the ‘Reformer POV’ the author would be a ‘Pawn’, and perhaps the Pawn was moved by Fallows, the Atlantic’s Loyal Babbler’?

Update 8PM: Tucker has added an update from the JSFPO: 

Joe DellaVedova, Public Affairs Director F-35 Lightning IIJoint Program Office contacted Defense One about this story. He says that while previous versions of ALIS did not allow for a human override, ”this has been corrected in the latest fielded release (ALIS 1.0.3).”
He adds: “ALIS continues to mature per its development roadmap and we currently have it installed aboard the USSWasp today to support of an operational test and evaluation of the F-35B air system which will happen this spring. There is also a more portable, modularized version of the ALIS Standard Operating Unit server for shipboard and expeditionary operations that is currently in final integration and test. This version will support the U.S. Marine Corps initial operating capability later this year.”

Sounds like...

...to me!

Kudos to Mr Tucker for not playing a 'Pawn'.  

Why I took the time to lay this all out.  

It’s kind of anti-climatic, but this entire sequence of events was perfect for making the following point:

The Old Guard of Military Reform are feeling the end is nigh. They have been operating within a certain framework for years now:

Indirect (Dotted Lines) Influence on Lawmakers and Strong Parallel Coordination With Fellow Travelers

But this is not the model under that they wish to operate. In this model, they have no ‘insiders’ in elected government and it irks them (Just read some of their published ‘work’) They yearn for the heady days of the 70’s and ‘80s when their crazy ideas about weapon systems being 'too complicated', 'too costly' were actually considered within the halls of government (Desert Storm knocked them off their game for an election cycle or three). This is the model they USED  to operate under:

The Old Days: When Reformers had a Toe-hold with the 'Ins' (May they NEVER return) 

The 'Reformers' want this arrangement to return, so they don’t have to spend so much time distorting reality and duping the Hoi Polloi. They’d like to just have to whisper in some politician’s ear, and party with their Loyal Babblers again. There’s been some rumbling by some politicians lately about ‘reform’ again. If one or more of the Old Guard hasn't been 'working' them already, I’d be amazed.

We covered everybody I wanted to cover in the system except the 'Foot Soldiers'. those are basically Old Guard 'wanna-bes', whose primary interest isn't just providing a conduit for the 'Reform' Message, but instead want to generate the Message as well. Not a lot of those guys around these days thank goodness, Although Thomas E. Ricks, through his activities at the fake defense 'Think Tank' the Left has set up called Center for a New American Security and 'serious' writings for the self-perceived serious 'Foreign Policy' audience seems to want to fill the shoes of a loyal 'Foot Soldier' in his semi-retirement.    

Why this took so darned long

The Excel spreadsheet POGO offers had some 'delimiting' problems when I grabbed a copy. On top of that, The original post I did on POGOs numbers was based on what Flight Global had at their site, and their 'interactive graphs that were....aren't anymore. An interesting thing to note about the AF Comptroller numbers (as represented by POGO) is that they are subject to correction. For instance, in my first post, I wondered why the WC-135W had a spike in one year's $/FH:

2011 POGO Data: 2006 Spike in Cost for WC-135W 

In this year's version of the data, the 'spike' is gone, and the numbers are completely different. take a look at the data, I may point out some things I noticed in some detail in a later post. Quick observations are that if the F-16C/D O&S cost trend continues, it will pass the F-35's estimated $/FH by about 2020, and the low density aircraft have the most sensitivity to support costs, groundings and airframe losses--and it shows in the data:

Chart added 11 May 15 to illustrate point made concerning estimated F-35 O&S Cost vs F-16 O&S cost trend

   

U.S. Navy ‘Non-Receptive’ to the F-35?

 Where did that come from? 

Source of original photo: US Navy 

Where did the idea that the “Navy” has been less than enthusiastic about the F-35C come from? I think I know, and can trace it back two or so years to a single statement made by the incoming CNO in an article for the USNI ‘Proceedings’. That single article gave such hope to the anti-JSF crowd that it gained far more audience and credence that it would have ever otherwise received, certainly more than it ever deserved.

Today, with the successful-to-date F-35 sea trials of the CF-3 and CF-5 aircraft operating off the USS Nimitz these past two weeks, the story has become one of a ‘surprising’ reversal of opinion (or beginnings thereof) by the Navy—at least as far as the media would lead us to believe.

I submit, that to the contrary it can be shown that what Navy enthusiasm there is for the F-35C is probably pretty much what it has always been, with perhaps a few more opinions among Wizened within the competing NAVAIR tribes lately changed for the better.

The life cycle of the whole ‘Navy chill to the F-35’ meme can be tracked easily—all the way back to its origins. The first FIVE citations/quotes are from the same publication taken over time. I do not mention the publication’s name for a couple of reasons. One, it doesn't matter. The media followed pretty much the same path getting here no matter what the sponsor. Two, I am partial to the reporting at the source and do not want to unfairly highlight this one little misadventure among a larger body of greater work. [I've numbered the steps involved in developing the meme to make it easier to discuss and reference if needed]

Ready? We begin…. 

Published this week, our source informed us that:

1. …The Navy has been much less enthusiastic about the F-35 than its two sister services, the Air Force and Marines. That seems to be changing now that the F-35C has successfully landed and taken off repeatedly from an aircraft carrier….

There was an embedded link in the statement that took me to last year:

2. “That’s the message Orlando Carvalho, new head of Lockheed Martin’s iconic aeronautics business wants to send the US Navy, the service most skeptical of the F-35."

There was an embedded link in THAT quote that took me to earlier last year:

3. “Speaking for the Navy,” added the Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, “I need the fifth-generation fighter, and that [F-35] provides it, so we’re all in — but it has to perform. It has problems; it is making progress.” 

“I do not at this point believe that it is time to look for an exit ramp, if you will, for the Navy for the F-35C,” continued Greenert, who in the past has damned the Joint Strike Fighter with similar faint praise.

This passage had an embedded link to an article with this bit:

4. By contrast, the CNO sounded more resigned than excited about the Navy piece of the $240 billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the carrier-launched F-35C. We have to have it, but “the question becomes how do we buy and how does it integrate into the air wing,” Greenert said. “If we bought no Cs, I think that would be very detrimental for the overall program.”

This passage contained one link to a 2012 article presenting this passage:

5. …Chief of Naval Operations Jonathan Greenert’s recent article in Proceedings announces in public what many have already known in private: The U.S. Navy is not wholly committed to the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. Admiral Greenert’s controversial — and, potentially, hugely consequential — article raises several interesting points, among which is the contention that advances in sensing capabilities and electronic and cyber warfare will increasingly degrade America’s stealth arsenal. 

This is not news. What is news, however, is the head of the U.S. Navy signaling a tepid commitment to the military’s largest acquisition program, not to mention the many allied and partner country participants. 

There were three links embedded to sources in the above to the ‘sources’ that follow. These are the first references external to the publication we’ve been citing so far:

6. A link to Admiral Greenert’s “Limits of Stealth” script in his now infamous “Payloads Over Platforms” article in USNI’s Proceedings as incoming CNO (2012), which, I note here, does not even mention the F-35. His shtick did not impress me at the time. Still doesn’t. But as we have seen in getting back to this point in time, his later comments appear to reflect a somewhat more ‘informed’ POV now. The 'CNO' is NOT 'the Navy' BTW.

7. A link to the ‘corrected final’ copy of the 2010 “The Final Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel”, A report that a word search of finds no mention of the “F-35C”, nor just the ‘F-35”, nor the words “Stealth” or “Low Observable”. Why it was even linked, I cannot tell.

8. A link to a Heritage Foundation paper titled “Thinking About a day Without Seapower: Implications for US Defense Policy”. It also has not a single mention of the “F-35”, ‘C’ model or otherwise, or “Low Observable”. It does mention the word “Stealth” three times:

Developing a Long-Term Research and Development Plan. After numerous studies and a half-dozen shipbuilding plans, Navy leaders have correctly concluded that the United States needs a larger fleet—not simply in numbers of ships and aircraft, but also in terms of increased network capability, longer range, and increased persistence. Navy leaders recognize that the U.S. is quickly losing its monopolies on guided weapons and the ability to project power. Precision munitions (guided rockets, artillery, mortars, and missiles) and battle networks are proliferating, while advances in radar and electro-optical technology are increasingly rendering stealth less effective. Policymakers should help the Navy to take a step back and look at the big picture to inform future investment portfolios. Congress should demand and uniformed leaders should welcome the opportunity to develop long-range technology road maps, including a science and technology plan and a research and development plan for the U.S. Navy. These plans should broadly outline future investments, capabilities, and requirements. The possibilities include:

• A next-generation surface combatant,
• A sixth-generation fighter, and
• Low-observable capabilities beyond stealth…

And....

Building a Modern Congress–Navy Partnership. …
...To relieve additional pressure on the already strained Navy shipbuilding budget, Congress should seriously consider funding the design and construction costs of the Navy’s new replacement ballistic missile submarine outside of Navy budget controls. These national assets are employed as part of critical strategic missions. Without additional resources, the defense industrial base and the nation’s conventional advantage at sea could be sacrificed to recapitalize the strategic force. Alternatively, Congress should consider whether this extremely expensive leg of the nuclear triad should be maintained in the face of decreasing stealth, shrinking nuclear stockpiles, and limited shipbuilding funds….

Note only two of the three ‘stealth’ references relate to low observable aircraft, and those stake out a claim similar to that which Admiral Greenert has since backed away from after he assumed the CNO responsibility. In any case, the Heritage Foundation report comes closest to representing the “Navy’s” coolness towards Low Observables in the form of one of the co-authors: a retired Navy Captain and ship driver. Not quite "The Navy' .

Strip away the journalistic overlay of 'what it all means' and there's no 'there' there. So much for the Navy being ‘cool’ towards the F-35C.

Now if you want to talk about the F-18E/F/G ‘community’ (read ‘tribe’) being cool towards the F-35, well………..DUH!

Just wait until the F-35 starts smacking the F-18 tribe around in training. It will be worse.

That’s called ‘Tradition’.

F-35 and the "Crack"-pots of Doom...Again.

They never learn.

At least it seems that way.

If the F-35 is 'plagued' by anything, it is plagued by critics who haven't a clue as to how Airframe Durability testing is conducted, what its objectives are, and how it fits into the modern aircraft development process. It seems this ignorance 'dooms' the F-35 program to an annual round of misplaced and sneering derision by people who have no idea they are broadcasting their own ignorance after every DOT&E report release.

Durability Testing Promotes the Useful Life.

Amusing as it is, such unwarranted criticism is counter-productive. I could produce a lengthy dissertation (you know I can) on the history and benefits of this kind of testing, and show how the developments to-date for the F-35 are no different than the programs before it --except for the F-35 doing it perhaps better and in a bigger fish bowl --but that would bore the cr*p out of most people.On top of that, the unrepentant anti-JSFers would only claim I was making excuses or some other equally stupid assertion. So I will default to providing an illustrative example of what I mean. Consider the following passage concerning the EARLY F-16 development (Queen's English BTW).

Fatigue tests 

In parallel with the flight-test programme a series of ground fatigue trials were carried out on the fifth development airframe. A test rig set up in a hangar at Fort Worth used more than 100 hydraulic rams to apply stress to an instrumented airframe, simulating the loads imposed by takeoff, landing and combat manoeuvering at up to 10g. By the summer of 1978, this airframe had clocked up more than 16,000 hours of simulated flight in the rig. These tests were carried out at a careful and deliberate pace which sometimes lagged behind schedule. 

As the tests progressed, cracks developed in several structural bulkheads. News of this problem resulted in hostile comments in the media, but GD pointed out in its own defence that the cracks had occurred not in flying aircraft but on ground test specimens. If the risk of such cracks during development testing was not a real one, a company spokesman remarked to the author at the time, no-one would be willing to pay for ground structural test rigs. GD redesigned the affected components, thickening the metal, and installed metal plates to reinforce existing units.  

--Source: F-16: Modern Fighter Aircraft Vol 2., Pg 18. ARCO Publishing, 1983.

Sounds kinda' familiar doesn't it?

I was tempted to employ some trickery to deceive the reader into thinking the above was written about the F-35, but I think this point is better made straight up.  Even after this testing, because the F-16 was initially the ultimate knife-fighting hot rod of a dayfighter, there were useful-life 'issues' on the early airframes. Pilots were flying higher G-loading at several times the rate as previous fighters and higher percentages of the time than that for which the airframe had been designed.    

Concurrency and the F-35: A CBS 60 Minutes (Re-Run) Viewers Guide

 Courtesy of F-16.net yesterday, I got a late head’s up on one of the Anti-JSF (politico, journolista, and ‘reformer’) memes that 60 Minutes is going pick up in their JSF segment tonight: “There’s been too much ‘Concurrency’ on the F-35 program”. How far 60 Minutes will run with the meme I don’t know, but I thought I’d highlight here just how the F-35 is ‘different’ from most (and ALL Air Force) post-WW2 predecessor programs, by highlighting the one aspect where it is viewed differently from all its predecessors.
While I’ve compiled prior examinations before on this topic, exposing the Concurrency Canard for what it was, and further reemphasized same when more supporting information became available, I think perhaps a review of the actual historical record should further drive the point home that ‘Concurrency’ as it applies to the F-35 is merely a smokescreen used to distract the ‘ahistorical’ among us.

Using “Post-World War II Fighters: 1945-1973” (contents, apparently verbatim, are also found here) for the ‘old’ systems, we will find that to varying degrees, fighter aircraft have always been fielded with originally planned capabilities added incrementally, and that in the case of the F-35, the difference isn’t in trying to produce and field aircraft too soon, it is the presumption that we should be able to delay production until you get it ‘just right’ before you produce in any quantity. Unless you want to damage or kill a program, this has been shown to be counterproductive. If you had followed one of the links to past writings above, you would have found a reference to the report by a team of analysts from Center for Naval Analysis in the Defense in ATL magazine (link):

Our results (located at [link fixed by me], based on examining 28 programs across all Services, are very similar to those of the Congressional Budget Office and RAND [example] studies with one surprising exception: While from a purely statistical point of view we found that the relationship between both planned and actual concurrency and cost growth was very weak, in both cases, there seems to be a “sweet spot” of about 30 percent concurrency. That is, programs that plan on spending 30 percent of RDT&E funds while concurrently spending procurement funds actually experience the lowest average cost growth. Similarly, those programs that actually do spend about 30 percent of RDT&E funds while concurrently spending procurement dollars, even when not originally planned, also experience lower cost growth. Furthermore, programs with planned or actual levels of concurrency below 30 percent experienced higher cost growth than those with higher levels of concurrency. In other words, lower levels of planned or actual concurrency were actually worse than higher levels of concurrency. This is the complete opposite of what many in the acquisition community believe.

There is one sentence at the end of the paragraph I did not include above this time because I wanted to emphasize it:

We speculate that lower levels of concurrency may expose the program to higher levels of external changes.

Ya’ think? 

 Ground Rules and Assumptions

Some of these GR&As will apply to this post, but most will be saved for perhaps later discussions. It just so ‘happens’that I’ve been looking at the Post-WW2 aircraft program data and histories for quite some time and have been using what I’ve found to develop a database of production quantities, service lives, and variant definitions for various analyses. There is always variability in data definitions and data quality when comparing separate systems and programs over long time spans. There are also often gaps in information. For this exercise I chose to use only programs where the aircraft were actually fielded. Where there were gaps in the data, I tried to select the most conservative approach to estimate. For example, if a production contract was signed in either 1951 or 1950. I would select 1951 for cost purposes. For another example, if it wasn’t clear if a variant was fielded in 1963 or 1964, I would select the earlier year for service life estimates.) Since how well a fighter performs or how long a fighter remains effective is not directly related to how long before it is completely phased out, I chose to use the point in time a fighter begins to be withdrawn from ‘front line service’ as the standard for calculating ‘front line service life’. For early jets, this typically involved first transfers to ANG or AF Reserve units, with the exception of Interceptors, for which the ‘front line’ mission was transferred with the aircraft to the Guard and Reserve. Aircraft ‘variants’ are defined as having a model designation change for older jets, but the distinction is blurred with the introduction of later ‘Block’ type designators.

Approach

The intent will be to ignore subsequent block upgrades and mods (thought they are the norm since early WW2), unless they involve a model (A,B,C,D etc.) designation change. This approach is selected because ALL aircraft receive upgrades over their service lives, but model changes tend to flag major capability improvements with major changes to aircraft configurations. We won’t be dwelling on costs or service lives in this post but will focus on typical aircraft evolutions, from the perspective of time and numbers fielded, beginning the ‘first of type’ production units through when the first ‘definitive’ units were procured.

We’ll cover the period from 1944 to 1973 in two sections, the first one “Buy Now – Fly Later” we’ll list the Air Force aircraft in the first decade after WW2 for which major production decisions were made before the aircraft even flew. In the second section, “Baby Steps”, we will highlight how many early versions of the jets were built and often discarded instead of upgraded before the definitive versions were decided upon. This will highlight how though configurations were frozen before early variants were contracted for, they were only building blocks to get what was really needed.

Buy Now – Fly Later

Before getting into the particulars of the history of ‘concurrency’ and graphically illustrating how buying large numbers of early versions of aircraft before the first (or more) definitive variants is the normal course of things, I think it will be helpful to first how many early aircraft production contracts in our sample were put into place before a ‘production-standard’ (or sometimes even a prototype) aircraft first flight even occurred. For the very early aircraft, it could be seen that this was the result of wartime exigencies, but only those very early aircraft. All citations are from "Post-World War II Fighters: 1945-1973". In order [brackets mine]:

1944:

The AAF definitively endorsed the P-80 on 4 April (2 months ahead of the XP-80A's first flight) with a LC [letter contract] that introduced the first production contract. This contract, as approved in December, called for two lots of P-80s (500 in each). Delivery of the first 500 was to be completed by the end of 1945; …

On 7 January North American presented a bold design based on the successful P-51. This design promised range, reliability, and less pilot fatigue (the two pilots could spell one another). The AAF endorsed it at once. In fact, a February letter contract to construct and test three experimental P-82s gave way in the same month to an order for 500 productions…

1945:

[In January] The AAF order covered 100 service test and production P-84 [ later redesignated F-84] airplanes-25 of the former and 75 of the latter. This was subsequently decreased to 15 service test articles, which were redesignated YP-84As. The production articles were correspondingly increased from 75 to 85 and redesignated P-84Bs. [The P-84 ‘mockup’ was viewed by the AAF for the first time the next month]

1946:

[20 December] Although the prototypes were still under construction, a production order was released. Unit cost of the first 33 P-86s [ later redesignated F-86] authorized for procurement was set at $438,999.00—more than twice the aircraft's eventual price.

1949:

Funds released by President Harry S. Truman in January 1949 enabled the Air Force to execute, during May of that year, a cost plus-a-fixed-fee contract amounting to some $48 million, excluding a fixed-fee of almost $3 million. The estimated costs stipulated in the contract covered modification of the second XF-89 (YF-89) and fabrication of the first 48 production aircraft (F-89As). [Note: the first XF-89 had severe development problems, flew little and was lost shortly after delivery of the second prototype]…

1951/52:

[October 1951] The Air Force Council pressed for the development of revised Sabre 45 [F-100]. This decision ran counter to the belief of key development personnel that the aircraft would not meet the simplicity and cost requirements, basic to a day fighter. To obtain quickly a new fighter that would substantially surpass the F-86, the Air Force Council also agreed with the Aircraft and Weapons Board's recommendations to buy it in quantity prior to flight-testing, even though this ran the risk of extensive modifications in the future…

Initial Contract Date 3 January 1952 The Air Force issued a letter contract for two F-100A prototypes…

First Contract for Production 11 February 1952 The Air Force rushed through a second letter contract to procure 23 F-100As with fiscal year 1952 funds...

Second Production Contract August 1952 Having found the revised mockup basically satisfactory, the Air Force directed procurement of 250 additional F-100As. 1953: The LCs, previously awarded to Convair, were superseded by a definitive contract. This contract, still based on the Cook-Craigie production plan, did not affect the number of aircraft initially ordered. Out of the 42 aircraft under procurement, several were earmarked for testing and two (F-102A prototypes) were scheduled for flight in October and December 1953, respectively...

1953:

The F-101 and F-102 which employed the Cook-Craigie approach (no prototypes) in the pursuit of trying to mature technology before committing to LARGE production quantities, while still committing to volume production as soon as possible. Subsequent jets of the original type were purchased in volume, in evolved forms as a result of lessons learned in operation and test.

Baby Steps

Some adjudication and ‘calls’ in the analysis had to be made, because the real world isn't tidy. For example, I elected to use the F-104G as the definitive model type, though the US never bought it, it was the most numerous and built upon all the prior developments. I didn’t include a lot of F-86 variants prior to the D model because they were really parallel efforts. The F-84F was different enough from the previous versions that if it had been designated during the F-106 era, it would have certainly been given a different number designation, but it was still the final evolution of a long line of F-84s.

There were quite a few other types of aircraft, but not bought in 'major' quantities (except for perhaps the F-86H and precursors but I didn't want to over emphasize the F-86). The most important thing to take from this chart is NOT that in the past, we built aircraft as best we could, learned from them, and made them better in the next iteration.

The takeaway IS that we fielded needed technology as fast as possible knowing we’d learn something new, or possibly fall short (without fear), or learn we needed different or just ‘better’ technology. We then incorporated those lessons learned to get the systems we needed. Most of the time those precursor aircraft had limited front-line service lives and were seconded or scrapped less than a decade after they were built.

Compare that approach with today’s approach; the one used for the F-35. A limited number of aircraft have been produced, with the intention of making them all (or nearly all) meet the baseline standard (Block 3) through subsequent modification. There will probably be around 200 aircraft (or fewer) produced before the first Block 3 plane is rolled out, far less than 10% of the currently planned total production run, and all but the most early of those jets will be upgraded to baseline standard via mostly software/component updates.

Even if the production ramp up hadn’t been delayed by playing the faux ‘concurrency’ card, there still would have been far fewer F-35s needing upgrade than obsolete precursor aircraft produced in fielding previous ‘major’ types. Stretching the program added more costs and more total risks, just fewer technical ones.
I can't emphasize enough that how we frame the concurrency question defines the concept and discussion in the public square. We must recognize that the detractors are playing games with the definition of concurrency to make the F-35 seem worse than it is and worse than predecessor aircraft programs.

This is easily demonstrated by looking at the F-16's evolution.  

I’ve noted multiple times around the web, with no credible rebuttal to date I might add, that there were 291 F-16 Block 1 and 5 deliveries before the first 'nominally' useful Block 10 was built. To keep perspective, the YF-16's first flight (official) was Feb 74, and the first definitive and fully capable Block 30/32 F-16s for the US first flew Feb 87. Counting all partner nation deliveries, approximately 1800 F-16s were delivered before the fully capable Block 30/32s. Until the Block 30/32, all the capabilities of the F-16 were less than what was envisioned by the planners (just not the so-called 'Reformers'). The Block 30/32s were the first F-16s with full Beyond Visual Range-engagement and night/precision ground/maritime attack capabilities. They were the first with full AIM-7/AMRAAM/AGM-65D/HARM capabilities. They were also the first with Seek Talk secure voice communications. Until Block 30/32, the F-16 was mostly a hot rod for knife fighting on blue-sky days. At Block 30/32 and beyond, it was what the users wanted in the first place. An ‘all-weather combat aircraft’ to the users, or what the so-called ‘reformers’ refer to as ‘ruined’. Fielding 1800 F-16s aircraft before you reach a 'baseline' in Block 30/32? Thirteen years after first flight? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: THAT is 'concurrent development'.
To varying degrees, the same phenomenon can be shown for the F-15, and the F-18's, just look a the program history and the rationales behind the differences in variants.

P.S. Sorry I couldn't get this post up before it aired in most places. 'Life' intervened. 

Journalists Who [Apparently] Have no Critical Reading Skills Either

(Formerly Titled 'Oddest Thing')

I was invited (challenged?) to comment on Ares concerning my last posting where I covered Bill Sweetman's latest assault on 'all things F-35'. I commented,  leaving a link to the post.

I considered the possibility that it was a setup of sorts, but wasn't concerned as much as curious as to what he had in mind. Tonight I checked back at Ares, and Sweetman had responded.  I was somewhat disappointed in the response and can dismiss it rather easily. So I tried to post a response tonight (Can't sleep, been sleeping all day and all weekend trying to get over the bug).

Odd thing happened though. My attempt to post the first part of a two-part response just seemed to hang up in the process. I had broken my response in two to match format limits, but that won't be necessary if I post it here. I'll try and post at Ares in the AM to see if the 'glitch' has cleared up. If not, I'll add it below, and change the title to "Journalists Who [Apparently] Have no Critical Reading Skills Either" .

Stay tuned....

Well,  I woke up in a hacking fit, rebooted the computer, and tried again a couple of hours later, STILL "No Joy". I provide my correction of Mr. Sweetman's counter-comment at Ares (Sweetman in Italics) with a few non-Nyquil additions in [brackets]. I'll come back and add links and labels when I next come up for air or feel better. I may just fold this whole thing into the bottom of the original post. My response begins below the line

*********************************************************************************

(Sweetman) You appear to be trying to make two points.

I did make two points.


(Sweetman) Rather than my $60m current URFC, which I based on three consecutive years in the most recent SAR, you claim the figure should be $80 million.

NO. I did not 'claim' the figure 'should be' $80M. I demonstrated that, just as Thompson indicated “by perusing the Pentagon’s Selective Acquisition Reports”, such information could be found.
I identified information in the latest SAR that I saw as perhaps clues to the $80M figure that could be found in an earlier SAR. Those clues led me to information in an earlier SAR: the immediately preceding 2011 SAR. Whether estimating then-year unit cost off the base year cost or simply dividing then-year total cost by the units – both arrive at a value close enough to be ‘about’ $80M.


(Sweetman)You base that number on one estimated 13-aircraft "close-out" buy in an older report. This is more accurate... exactly how?

It is more accurate:

• because it was in the program of record at the time.
• because it reflected actual expected annual quantity buy and costs [which are the most current values for cancelled 2014 buy].
• most of all because it reflected a single-year procurement price, as the previous years that you chose to ‘average’ include the benefit of a multi-year buy [and FMS price support].
• because it also reflected the fact that there were no E-18Gs programmed at the time (for the first time in years) and were therefore not also providing price support 'off the F-18E/F books'.

As an aside, though the 13 E/Fs disappeared for 2014 in the 2012 SAR, [we find] 21 EA-18Gs have been added for 2014 in the 2012 SAR. They, of course, are more expensive as well.
[As another aside, whereas I can point to definite drivers for the increased cost, "close-out" buy is vague, undefined, and in this case unsupported: a  'throwaway' term.]

My first point is therefore made: Facts are in evidence that indicate substance behind Thompson’s $80M figure and [intelligent people may deduce that] therefore indignation and/or incredulousness were unwarranted.


(Sweetman)Then, you dispute my estimate for the 2001 cost by using a different inflation factor, called "economy cost".

NO. My second point was explicit: “Without the quantification of all “the necessary electronics included”, or estimation method used Thompson’s figures aren’t really debatable.” I then added that whatever your estimation was based upon, “it still does not invalidate Thompson’s claims if he uses another recognized inflation adjustment method, SUCH AS that for ‘Economy Cost’.”  

[ If Thompson's numbers bothered me, my first instinct would be to send an e-mail to him first asking him "Hey, what do you base those numbers on? I guess I'm too inquisitive to be a 'journalist']



(Sweetman)But the Pentagon doesn't use it - and neither does anyone else. A Google search for the term (in quotes) does not show it as a method of calculating inflation in its first four pages. If I add the words "inflation method" to the search I get two hits - the source that you link to, and your page.

Since my point, again, was that without more data ANY evaluation is futile, this is pretty much a ‘red herring’,  but I’ll play along. You would have had better luck with Elsevier instead of Google but not by much. First, because ‘Economy Cost’ is a pretty esoteric term. Second, “Economy Cost” is one of those word combinations that will yield multitudes of results far more popular and unrelated or at best peripheral: akin to looking for information on the web concerning incubating eggs by typing in ‘hot chicks’.
In any case, the ‘website’ is part of a project run by two economics professors, with about a dozen international members--apparently all of them also economics professors--on their project advisory board. Ergo: ‘somebody’ uses it.
BTW and not that it matters either: DoD uses OMB inflation figures, it may be authoritative for DoD estimating but not necessarily ‘accurate’ for a 'true' perspective . In DAU it is taught that DoD estimating methods are often disconnected (lower) from methods used by the rest of the world, because “OMB inflation rates reflect policy goals rather than a consensus of forecasters”(link: a dot mil site: ignore warning to view). That's an interesting pedigree isn't it?


(Sweetman) Thanks for playing.

Oh No. Thank You. [Its always appreciated when the big boys come down and inspire the hoi polloi.]

F-35 Math is Hard. Analysis is Harder

Apparently Too Hard for Bill Sweetman Anyway

Bill Sweetman takes exception with Loren Thompson’s ‘math’. Let’s take a look at the complaint for any validity, shall we?
(Note: I’m not a big fan of Thompson or any ‘policy’ type for that matter that delves into the technical issues – they tend to grossly oversimplify the irreducible, but Thompson appears to be on target this time)

Taking a gander at the key bits of Sweetman’s editorial we find:

As Thompson says, “these numbers can be verified easily by perusing the Pentagon’s Selective Acquisition Reports.” The latest SARs for the F/A-18 and F-35 can be found here and here.

So let’s look at the key claims.

"Even if we include the electronic defenses and targeting systems not usually subsumed in a Super Hornet price tag, the unit recurring flyaway cost of a single-seat F/A 18 is about $80 million in today’s dollars. The corresponding cost for an F-35C is $130 million.”

The URFC of the F-35C is about right. But in then-year dollars, the URFC of the Super Hornet over 2011-13 averages $60 million (page 18 of the Hornet SAR). So what are the "electronic defenses and targeting systems” that would raise that number by $20 million? Targeting pods run about $2 million, and the ALQ-214 jamming system has been under $1 million per aircraft historically. (The SAR is not very clear as to whether those are included in the URFC.) The new Block 4 version of the jammer is higher, but any identifiable mods to the Super Hornet are still a fraction of the $20 million that Thompson is adding. Today, the F-35C costs more than two Super Hornets.

Swing and a miss!

Bill took his figures off a page (Page 18) titled “Annual Funding TY$”. For this report, we can use those numbers although I always prefer to use base year values and adjust. Sweetman’s fatal error was in not reading and understanding the totality of what he was trying to quantify,

On Page 28 of the same report, we find one entry under called “Quantity variance resulting from a decrease of 13 FA-18E/F from 565 to 552.” This entry, combined with the 2014 'blank' space in the table columns he was looking at should have prompted Sweetman to look at the previous F-18E/F SAR for more info.

It turns out, the FY2011 F-18E/F SAR had an entry (pages 17-19) for 13 units in 2014. Depending on which data you choose to use in the 2011 SAR, and in one case how you adjust from $FY2000 base dollars, it works out that those 13 units would cost between $78.9M and ~$80M each.

• Page 17 values are 13 units for $1.026B (Then Year Dollars) = $78.92308M each.
• Page 19 values, 13 units for $61.07M (Base Year 2000 Dollars) + adjusted for inflation to 2012 dollars* = $79.4M each.

*Inflation adjuster only goes to 2012, 2013 data not calculated yet

$78.92308M or $79.4M?

Call it “about $80M”, just as Thompson asserts. So why the unit cost jump? Look at the SARs. From a glance it looks to be all about Quantity and FMS price support.

Like They Say on TV: But Wait, There's More!

Sweetman goes on (in more ways than one):

Next: “When 100 single-seat Super Hornets had been produced, the unit recurring flyaway cost—with all necessary electronics included—was about $110 million in today’s dollars, which is where F-35C is likely to stand at the 100th airplane.”

The 100th Super Hornet was delivered in the Fiscal 2001 batch. According to the SAR, the then-year URFC was $61 million. A standard Pentagon inflation calculator raises that to $77 million in 2012 - $33 million less than Thompson’s figure. The F-35 is 43 percent more expensive if it is indeed $110 million.

I call 'Caviling'

Without the quantification of all “the necessary electronics included”, or estimation method used Thompson’s figures aren’t really debatable.

Sweetman citing a ‘standard Pentagon inflation calculator isn’t very descriptive, but the 2001 Superhornet values he chooses to use comes close to adjusting the 2001 F-18E/F URF the same as if using the Historic Opportunity Cost inflation adjustment ($77.6M), which is a far better choice than most make, but it still does not invalidate Thompson’s claims if he uses another recognized inflation adjustment method, such as that for ‘Economy Cost’.

Economy Cost adjustment of the 2001 URF yields $95.5M per aircraft (without electronics) in 2012.

If the Economy Cost method was used by Thompson, $95.5M without the 'electronics' probably would be equal to about ~$100M with electronics,

If anything, the Economy Cost is a more inclusive measure of a project’s value:

Economy Cost of a project is measured using the relative share of the project as a percent of the output of the economy. This measure indicates opportunity cost in terms of the total output of the economy. The viewpoint is the importance of the item to society as a whole, and the measure is the most inclusive. This measure uses the share of GDP

In Closing

Sweetman appears to be just trying to pile-on with the last complaint. Overall, his editorial fails to ‘disprove’ or cast doubt on anything except some people’s grasp of economics and defense spending. Perhaps Sweetman’s well-known target fixation on the F-35 was his undoing this time around? No doubt the innumerate will still be impressed.

UPDATE 28Jan13 : at the 'Ares' site, after trying more than once, it was still impossible to post a substantive rebuttal to Sweetman's mischaracterization of this post in the comment thread so I posted it here.