F-35B IOC is Imminent

Prepare for all the Handwringing

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

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

Like this:

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

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

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

A Mysterious LM CUDA Missile Update

Just gets more interesting as time goes on...

Major Hat Tip to Marauder for finding the relevant AFIT Technical thesis and passing it along

Regular readers may remember one of my most popular posts on LM’s CUDA missile concept. In that post, I hypothesized some about the CUDA’s weight and resultant performance by using a comparative analysis of what little was known about the CUDA and existing missiles with known physical characteristics. Key assumptions were that the same kind of propellant characteristics and relative scaling of the different components of existing missiles would apply to the CUDA.

Based upon a recent AFIT paper I no longer believe that approach is sufficient.

Employment of a CUDA missile ‘concept’ was used in a thesis written by Army Major Casey D. Connor, and published earlier this year. In his paper “AGENT-BASED MODELING METHODOLOGY FOR ANALYZING WEAPONS SYSTEMS”, Major Connor modeled and examined the relative effectiveness of different missile loadout combinations for a very specific A2A mission using two methods of attack: 'straight-in' and ‘pincer’.
The paper was exploratory in nature, and there’s not enough in the paper to come to any more conclusions than Major Connor did -- but I’m sure someone will read more ‘findings’ into it than he did. In fact, I'd expect 'some' to leap to all kinds of ‘conclusions’ about a lot of different sub-topics because the paper really does raise some very interesting questions that someone else will probably/hopefully pick up and follow-up on going forward.
The value of the paper to us in this instance is that it gives us an indication of some key performance—shall we say—“possibilities” for a CUDA-like weapon system. The paper uses the terms CUDA-like and SACM (Small Advanced Capability Missile) interchangeably. Given the rumblings on the web and in aero media since the CUDA concept’s existence went public, the relationship of the CUDA (a Lockheed Martin concept) to SACM (the programmatic objective of CUDA) is now better known. No surprises there.

What is Surprising?

What IS surprising (to me at least) are the characteristics used for the CUDA/SACM in Major Connor’s thesis. Specifically, Connor provides the CUDA/SACM weight used in his simulations as 49Kg (108 lbs). This has HUGE implications. 

If by my original speculation where I extrapolated known data about existing technology, I had arrived at a weight estimate that was 45.5 lbs higher (153.5 lbs) than the 108lb weight Connor uses, then it almost certainly speaks of significantly more advanced/miniaturized technology than simply scaling down 'more of the same' from existing systems.

I had toyed with putting a wedge in my original estimate for a reverse-weight spiral (less structural weight is needed the lower the non-structural weight), but thought that would have been pushing all the ‘estimating’ a little too far. As it turns out I would have come closer, but still nowhere near a mere 108 lbs for a CUDA weight estimate by my using current weapons for baseline info. I think now that ‘Next generation’ guidance, control, structure, and maybe  propulsion technology breakthroughs almost certainly permeate that CUDA/SACM design concept. As the scaling of RM propellant weight probably still applies (harder to make lighter propellant than other components), I don't think there's much weight change per cubic inch of volume there. But even so, this new lower weight could potentially drive the CUDA/CACM higher in the ‘Delta V’ performance than what I had previously estimated.

What Changed?

If only the weight is lower, with the other factors such as the ratio between pre-launch and expended rocket motor weights, and propellant/rocket factors, etc., then the CUDA potential top speed would not necessarily be higher than my first estimate (~24% higher than AMRAAM using existing missiles as guides). But I don’t think that at this new lighter weight, the same ratio CAN still hold true: a larger percentage of the total CUDA/SACM weight is now more likely found in the rocket motor -- if only just because everything else got lighter.
This shift in weight contribution, in turn, would mean a larger percentage of pre-launch weight is propellant that will be expended in acceleration. The scope of the impact of such a change is unknown, but here is a parametric exploration of the impact of various possible RM weight ratios from no change (54.53%) and up to a little more than 5% increase (60%):

What if the CUDA has a higher percentage of propellant weight than the AMRAAM?
(updated verbiage for more clarity less obfuscation)

As you can see, very little increases in the ratio of propellant weight to total weight yields significantly higher potential Delta V that could be tapped into to:

1. increase range, 
2. enable shaping complex flyouts, and/or 
3. increase end-game dynamics. 

That this improved performance is likely a ‘truism’ in the CUDA/SACM design concept is reflected in Major Connor’s findings.

Connor’s modeling of the engagements he selected resulted in outcomes where the ‘pure’ CUDA/SACM loadout successfully engaging the RED AIR targets at significantly greater distances (32%-38% greater, depending on attack method used) than the Medium Range Missile Model (AMRAAM-basis) used (see Fig. 43 below from the source). That kind of range advantage would be consistent with a higher Delta V for the CUDA/SACM weapon.



[Note: Read the paper for information on the mixed loads of a short range missile (AIM-9X ‘like’), medium range missile (MRM) and the CUDA/SACM weapons]

The higher performance of the CUDA/SACM also shows up in the higher 'effectiveness' ratings of the pure CUDA/SACM loadout over the pure MRM loadout. As Figure 42 from the paper below illustrates, the pure CUDA/SACM missile loadout kills targets at better than a 2 to 1 advantage over the MRM’s kill rate as well as doing so at ranges farther than the MRM. 

This increased effectiveness suggests perhaps an even better end-game kinematic CUDA/SACM design performance than the MRMs due to a higher percentage of propellant design weight, working with the hit-to-kill Attitude Control Motors (ACMs) in the front-end. 

Connor’s focus in the paper isn’t on getting into the nuances of the CUDA/SACM’s capabilities, but the higher performance of the CUDA concept indicated by the data is supported by his observations within the text as well:

The main characteristics of the new missile technology examined in our research include hit-to-kill technology in which the missile uses a kinetic warhead to attack the target, agility in that the missile’s guidance, propulsion, and control surfaces allow it to maneuver more flexibly towards a target, and a smaller size allowing each fighter to carry more missiles. These new weapons have the potential for dramatically changing the range of possible tactics and mission roles allowed. (p.1)

And…

Tactics best suited to the new missile are ones that maintain BVR to take advantage of the increased engagement ranges and possibly combined tactics that allow the flexible maneuvering characteristics of the new missiles to engage enemy aircraft at angles that the enemy aircraft will be unable to counter. (p.102)

There’s a lot of other ‘food for thought’ on many air combat topics in the paper. Connor was meticulous in documenting what he could of the methodology that he used including the limitations, ground-rules and assumptions. There’s also some excellent sources listed for further reading in the list of references.

Time will tell if the SACM concept will be developed into a full-up weapon system. But I must say that if it doesn’t go forward in some iteration or another I will be even more surprised than I have been so far in following the CUDA/SACM story.

Note: minor edits for readability and clarity made 16 July @ 1945 CST.

The Air Force Reaffirmed "A-10 retirement decision" in a "Week"

Anyone with reasonable exposure to the 'issue' could have done the same thing. 

If I thought anyone was interested, I could lead a little online systems engineering exercise. Except we'd have to endure the "Because Big Gun!" argumentation. You already know where I stand on that 'point'.

And Ohohohohohohoho the A-10 fanboys of the U.S. Nostalgia Force are going to go ape-you-know-what over this one.

After a week of concentrated study of its close air support (CAS) role, the US Air Force essentially has decided to stick with plans to gradually retire the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II and hand the CAS mission to the Lockheed Martin F-35.

It really just took a week to run everyone involved at the top through the relevant information already in hand.

The CAS "controversy" has been studied to freakin' death leading up to this moment, and it's not exactly like ANYONE who has paid attention doesn't already know the USAF has been looking at A-10 obsolescence growing......... like, forever. 

The article at FlightGlobal lays out pretty much what one would expect.

1. Phase out A-10 and phase in F-35 (as planned all along) 

2. Look at alternatives to fill any gaps during the transition (as F-35 capabilities mature). 

That's not 'too complicated' is it? 

Some good details at the link, such as still having dedicated CAS units (Which I note did no good to appease the 'A-10 forever!' crowd the first, last, any time.

If I were to open a group SE exercise to derive requirements for a CAS aircraft, I would start by asking "What capabilities are necessary in a CAS plane?

After the dumb*sses with the 'big gun!' ,'fly slow!', derived qualities spouted off, and if we even cared, we would probably employ the 'Five Whys' approach to backing out the top-level requirements. Example: Why do we need a big gun?, and then based upon the answer, ask why that answer was valid, and etc back to the truly top-level requirements. In doing so, we would arrive at a list of characteristics: effective targeting, responsiveness, lethality, survivability, persistence, etc.

F-35 optimal attack profile with GAU-22 vs. 

A-10 Optimal Attack Profile. F-35 rounds per

square meter density is approximately double 

A-10's even at a much longer, safer range.    

There would be multiple paths that could be followed to meet a desired top-level requirement: a 'Big Gun with lots of ammo' is but one technical solution to 'lethality'.  But we also have 'effective targeting' which does not just support overall lethality objectives -- it also includes "safe to employ" as one of many sub-elements of "effectiveness". So once we got into looking at the optional material solutions we could select for 'lethality' we would then perform tradeoffs among the many desired attributes, and many of them will be contrary to each other. A balance among all of the attributes would have to be achieved. 

Done to Death

But we don't have to do this study. It's been done to death. And it wouldn't have to have been done very well at all to produce an argument that beats PFC Short Stroke's anecdotal recollections of 'that day in the 'Stan', UNLESS we can count on CAS not ever/likely needing a 'better' (as in 'survivable in a medium-high threat arena') weapon system than the A-10. If you can't guarantee a low-threat battlefield future, you have NO basis for preserving an asset that is only survivable in a low-threat environment. That's not the only reason the A-10 needs replacing, but it ought to be the easiest one to grasp.        

    

 

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-35C Makes First Carrier Traps

Hat Tip:  'Raptor_Claw' at F-16.net.

Today, the first two carrier landings by F-35Cs were accomplished. One more check box checked.
The first trap (landing, catching the cross deck pendant, or 'wire') caught the 3rd (of 4) wires --exactly as it is preferred.

U.S. Navy Video:

Screen captures from this event show some interesting things going on. I'd say the pilot positioned the jet about as well as any man or UAV software could have done it. The objective is to catch the '3- Wire', and the optimal touchdown area is 95%+ between the 2nd and 3rd wire. The pilot could not have bought hardly any more area to measure hook behaviors after touch down:


F-35C First Carrier Landing Pic 1

Notice the main wheels are not yet touching the deck (you can see the stripe in the middle still under the left main tire).



F-35C First Carrier Landing Pic 2

Here the wheels are just beginning to touch the deck but are not showing signs of weight on the wheels. It looks like the first curls of tire smoke are starting to come up.




F-35C First Carrier Landing Pic 3

This screen cap is just (barely) after the previous one, A little more tire smoke, and the weight is not yet on the wheels very much. The tailhook is about even with the 2-Wire.



F-35C First Carrier Landing Pic 4

Weight is coming on to the wheels now and it appears the hook is down on the deck as well. Notice the 2-Wire in the center where the hook went over/across. It appears the hook bottom may have hit the wire top, or at the most barely nicked the wire. I think it hit the top because of what we see in the next screen cap.



F-35C First Carrier Landing Pic 5

There is a lot going on in this picture. The hook is about to engage the 3-Wire. The nose gear is still in the air and the 'mains' have run over the 3-Wire: you can see the wave in the pendant propagating outward. Now look back at the 2-Wire. It has very a slight displacement forward that has propagated outward (compare to previous pic) , but is laying flatter than I would expect if the hook had impacted it directly. I guess we might find out someday.

A Good Day for the Program, the Navy, and the Taxpayer eh?

The Robert F. Dorr F-35 Follies

Don’t Expect Insight

I believe Robert F. Dorr, long-in-tooth aviation ‘journalist’ and ersatz ‘historian’, reached new editorial and factual lows in September’s Combat Aircraft Monthly with his ‘editorial’ THE F-35 FOLLIES: DON'T EXPECT IMPROVEMENT. I already had a ‘getaroundtoit’ project on the back-burner to deconstruct one of his slightly earlier transgressions, but I found his latest output was such an over-the-top feral rant-job, that it just deserved to be exposed even more. Piece by piece. 
It ties in well with one other post I am working on, another re-look at the mythical Military-Industrial complex, and was helpfully, but unintentionally pointed out to me by an aviation enthusiast in the comments elsewhere.
After you’ve read what he wrote, ask yourself:  how much faith should one place in anything else he’s written? Try and avoid the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect when you next read something dribbling off the page written by Robert F. Dorr.

It begins: 

WAR IS FOUGHT in bad weather, amid noise, chaos and bad smells, with people trying to kill you. Yet even in sunny weather, in the calm of an airshow venue, the Pentagon was unable to get its F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter to show up and to show off.

Hmmm. Dorr opens his ‘editorial’ with a (perhaps ‘slight’?) mis-characterization of the F-35’s non-deployment and subsequent missing of its planned international airshow debut. It’s only a ‘slight’ mis-characterization, IF Dorr is criticizing the DoD and F-35 program partners for not bringing themselves to accept the risk of doing so while an investigation into the engine failure and subsequent near-immolation on 23 June was (and is) ongoing. 
But I doubt that is the case: certainly Dorr isn’t implying he would have advocated the circumvention of normal safety/accident investigation protocols just to meet an airshow deadline and, on the side, accomplish a minor F-35 ‘first’ (Trans-Atlantic, overseas deployment)?
This leaves us only two other possible reasons--that I can see anyway--for Dorr even bothering to bring this subject up. First, he might believe that the F-35 couldn’t actually physically accomplish the deployment if it had been allowed. But that meaning would fly in the face of all the evidence in hand, as the F-35 program was prepared to deploy right up until the Safety Mafia ruled it out completely (See here, and here). 
That leaves us with one last possible meaning. We can assume Dorr is just poking a stick in the F-35’s programmatic ‘eye’ because……because he can? We’ll use that reason for our working hypothesis, but we’ll keep an eye out for any real justification for his aspersion. I mean "justification" above and beyond his desire to merely poke at the program, the jet, or anything else.

The F-35 follies continue. 

This summer's on-again, off-again effort by British and American experts to display an F-35 at airshows at Fairford and Farnborough would have been laughable if it was not symptomatic of larger problems.

So now Dorr punctuates his first claim by broadening it: asserting in effect: ‘I say this was a BIG problem but there’s even BIGGER problems going on!’ Will he provide proper factual evidence and employ logical argumentation to back his accusations up.

It simply is no longer acceptable to make excuses for the F-35, as former British Defence Secretary Philip Hammond did. Hammond brushed off this summer's problems by arguing that the F-35 is 'still in its developmental stage'. Nor can the F-35’s problems be brushed under the rug with bombast, some of which accompanied US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's July 10 visit to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.

No, he does more stick-poking. Perhaps Mr. Dorr will now also provide proper factual evidence and logical argumentation to support his assertion that Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s truthful observation that the F-35 is “still in its developmental stage” is ‘brushing’ off the ‘problems’. Or perhaps he’ll expand on what he means about a “bombast” at Eglin? Okay Mr. Dorr. We get it. Dorr is, or is pretending to be, OUTRAGED! So then, will Dorr NOW provide some proper factual evidence and logical argumentation to justify his outrage? Or will he just keep ‘going’?

And least of all is it acceptable to shrug off F-35 woes with a platitude, as did Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, who told reporters , 'When you develop a system like this you're going to have hiccups.'

He. Kept. Going…
We should hold no hope of Dorr bothering to explain why he thinks that “when you develop a system like this you're going to have hiccups” is a “platitude”. He cannot truthfully name an advanced fighter aircraft that has been fielded in the last 50 years for which Hammond’s statement would not apply. (Nor could he do so for any endeavor where the descriptors ‘complex’ and ‘advanced technology’ can be rightfully employed.)
Feh, what the heck. We’ll probably just get more outrage without substance, but let’s ride along to the end…..

It's worse than that. If a dog were to bite you in the butt, that would not make headlines because journalism classes teach that 'dog bites man' isn't news. If you wanted to be the lead story on the BBC evening news, you would have to bite the dog. But there are no 'man bites dog' episodes in the F-35 story because all of it is all too familiar. We've now observed several generations of people who have bungled the F-35 program, lied about it and drawn their pensions, and they are not making news because there is absolutely nothing new in the twisted, terrible tale of the F-35: it's 'dog bites man '.

Aaaannnnd I was right. We got MORE unsupported ranting. This time it was a pointless ‘journalism’ cliché (AKA ‘dog bites man’) followed by….more aspersions: against people involved in the F-35 program. 
So then. Mr. Dorr. Tell us. Tell us who the people were in those “generations” of “bunglers” and ‘liars’? What were their ‘lies’? Why were they ‘lies’? How (through ‘mistaken error’ of course) might you be misrepresenting the true history? Make your freakin’ case…. IF you can.
Here we are, about one fourth of the way through Dorr’s ‘editorial’, before his complaints got to any specificity beyond ‘F-35 is bad!’ and he tells us… ‘somebody lied’? Will Dorr ever provide any information useful to the reader in assessing whether his assertions as being ‘true’, ‘false’, or heck--even ‘remotely plausible’? Or is he just going to keep spitting venom at us through the keyboard?

The F-35 costs too much. That's not news. By my math, a US Air Force squadron could operate five Eurofighter Typhoons - a fighter that impresses many US airmen - for the price of three F-35s. The latest figures are $184 million for a land-based F-35A and $208 million for the carrierborne F-35C… 

Ah! Finally! Something falsifiable.
Dorr’s math is getting a little better (as in closer to the truth than his previous ‘misses’), but he should keep his self-qualifier of having “dumb math” skills until he can gain some ‘smart math’ skills. I won’t guess what his cost number sources are for the Eurofighters, because it doesn’t matter. Per the latest Selective Acquisition Report, for F-35As bought this year and in 2014 “Then Year” Dollars, the F-35A ‘costs’ $181.3M ‘per copy’ ONLY if you include all the support and non-recurring costs. As I doubt the Eurofighter unit costs Mr. Dorr was working with contained the support and non-recurring costs, the idea you could buy more Eurofighters than F-35As is ludicrous. As the same SAR shows the Unit Recurrng Flyaway Costs at about 63% of the $181.3M, or $114.1M  in 2014 dollars for 2014 jets, and Eurofighter costs are not touted as 'low', I must conclude Dorr is playing as fast and loose with the 'present' as he seems to play with the 'past'. 
I'd do the definitive math if it was necessary, but again the SAR saves the day (pages 72 and 75) with the average unit costs of the F-35A (airframe and engine) equaling $77.7M in Base Year 2012 dollars over the life of the program. We will set aside the not so trivial point that a lot of the recurring costs that Dorr includes in his numbers are spent and in the past. this will avoid having to disabuse future commentary on the nuances of Sunk Cost and the Sunk Cost fallacy.

…Early in the program, the F-35 was touted as a low-cost alternative to the F-22 Raptor….

Hey! This is actually a truism….in the sense that it was ONE justification for the Joint Strike Fighter. But it was not the only one or even the primary one. It seems to be just a convenient way for Dorr to punch up the ‘cost’ message he’s trying to sell.
As to primary reasons for the F-35 instead of the F-22, why would anyone want to replace ALL the airplanes now performing a range of missions with a definite ‘strike’ emphasis with an F-22? Answer: they wouldn’t. In the spectrum of multi-role capabilities, the F-22 of course is clearly optimized more to fulfill the Air Dominance role than the Strike role, The Joint STRIKE Fighter is obviously optimized somewhat farther towards the Air-to-Mud end of the scale. So ‘cost’ of the TOTAL force capabilities was but one reason. Did it get overtaken by events? Dorr evidently assumes so:

….But the cost of rolling a single article out of the assembly plant door, to say nothing of lifetime operating expenses, has risen relentlessly until last year when it began to level off…

Dorr is mixing cost elements and cost impacts and presenting them as meaningful (to him --I guess), when without ‘context’ (the C in PACE) they are not meaningful. Actual unit production costs were increasing for delivered Low Rate Initial Production aircraft for a variety of reasons, not the least of which (and likely the ‘most of which’) were reduced size lot buys and in turn, lower production ramp-up rates and breaks in the learning curve. Blame Congress for stretching out the low-rate production effort all under the banner of avoiding modification costs by reducing production rates in fear of that bogeyman: ‘concurrency’.
This is but one of the unaccounted-for cost impacts of the ‘concurrency’ reduction scam being played out in the current budget environment. Dorr’s mention of the “lifetime operating expenses” fails to recognize that those expenses aren’t actual dollars…yet. They are only ‘estimates’, and the quality of the estimates have been horrendous. But the estimates are starting to get better. Therefore the estimate costs are also coming down. If Dorr and his fellow rant-boys were ever forced to acknowledge the fine print in the Selected Acquisition Reports, they would be doing their readers a service.
First, their readers would learn on Page 95 of the 2013 F-35 SAR that:

For the first time, in 2013, the CAPE O&S cost estimate incorporates actual information on component reliabilities obtained from the ongoing F-35 flight operations, including flight test and field operations. This program information is provided from the DoD test community, through the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation, and includes actual reliability information on many F-35 components based on data collected during approximately 8,500 hours of flight operations. 

The data include the F-35A and F-35B variants, and flight operations through October 2013. The reliability information has been compared to expected reliabilities for this stage of the program, for the A and B variants, based on reliability growth curves. The 2013 CAPE O&S estimate includes an increase of $15 billion (BY12 $) in DLR costs, relative to the 2012 Milestone B estimate, because component reliability information obtained from actual flight operations data is not consistent with expectations.

While this approach is generally to be commended, to attach any great value to the lifetime costs generated by these estimates this early in the fleet’s flight history is specious. “Approximately 8,500 fleet flight hours” is only about 4 ½% of the 200,000 fleet flight hours for all variants that has been identified as flight hour mark when the expected, designed, and required operational reliability is to be achieved and measured. To attach definitive meaning to reliability numbers at this time is statistical malpractice. To assert associated costs associated to those reliability numbers are worthy of consideration at this time is ludicrous.
The good news, also from Page 95 of the 2013 F-35 SAR, is:

CAPE will continue to work with the DoD operational test community to improve the processes and methods used to incorporate actual data and information on component reliabilities and removal rates, obtained from ongoing flight operations, into the CAPE life-cycle O&S cost estimate for the F-35 program. This information will be used, together with reliability improvement forecasts, to update the life cycle O&S cost estimates as the program proceeds to and beyond IOC.

So perhaps eventually, the support cost numbers will become meaningful. May we expect that the Bob Dorrs of this world will acknowledge this phenomenon when it emerges? Especially if the story ends with greatly reduced estimates? Or should we expect them to use any changes as factoids in order to continue their weaving of fabulous stories, perhaps promoting a repeat of past ‘conspiracy’ and ‘coverup’ memes in the face of positive developments?
Dorr closes out this paragraph with:

…Too many dollars have been poured into an aircraft that isn't worth this many greenbacks and no-one is being held to account….

This is just another unsupported allegation, whereby this time Dorr wrongly presumes he is qualified to make such a judgment for his readers. It is thrown out in the vein of a false ‘everybody knows’ argument. I note here, that this is the closest Dorr gets to discussing the concept of ‘value’ in regards to the F-35’s cost and performance, by simply declaring it isn’t worth the effort. Yet ‘buyers’ apparently do think the F-35 is worth the effort. Should it have occurred to Dorr that perhaps the ‘Customer’ actually does know what’s best for them?
Dorr flows into the next paragraph with a series of statements full of pointless indignation and storytelling. This time however, instead of avoiding providing a ‘context’ for his claims, he attempts to overlay a perversion of history: a fable to create a FALSE context for his readers to absorb:

The F-35 is behind schedule. That's not news. Never before in a defense program have so many examples been airworthy (102 , presumably minus the fire victim) without even one being ready to perform a mission. (In 1942, the first Bell XP-59A Airacomet was configured and equipped for combat on the day of its first flight.) Schedules have been re-written again and again as dates for delivery, the start of training, clearance for night and all-weather operation, and initial operating capability have moved to the right on the calendar. Remember that this summer, officials were not debating whether any F-35 is combat-ready because none is. They were debating whether a few airframes could find their way across the Atlantic to attend a couple of airshows. Too many delays have become embedded in the F-35 saga and no-one is being held to account.

First, even if it were ‘true’, the relevance of decrying that 102 F-35s were airworthy without “even one being ready to perform a mission” would be a ‘red herring’ argument employing misleading vividness: an over the top yet irrelevant argument against the worth or status of the F-35’s performance or program.

It is, however, hyperbolic nonsense on its own: a gross exaggeration. It extrapolates the fact that the F-35 has not yet been ‘cleared’ to do certain things nor been declared operational’ into the mistaken (or malicious) assertion that none of the F-35s could go out tomorrow and actually “perform a mission”. Dorr conveniently leaps past the fact that the administratively prohibited does not preclude the physically possible, and that a full capability yet to be reached does not preclude some capability already being extant in the current fleet. F-35’s are flying and launching weapons that are hitting their intended targets. If it were today’s wartime equivalent of 1942, when the XP-59 emerged, would there be any doubt that the F-35 would be pushed into combat and matured along the way? NO. Because the capability to deploy with reduced capability exists today with existing aircraft and software that exist today.
So as it turns out, the XP-59A analogy is a one of monumental overstatement and epic irrelevance. That is, it would be IF it were actually true. First let us observe that what it took to get a ‘first article’ to first flight in 1942 has little relationship to what it takes to field a modern weapon system, even ignoring the wartime urgency of the jet programs during WW2.
As to whether or not the XP-59A was truly “configured and equipped for combat” on the day of its first flight? Dorr is not even close to being right. Ever see any pictures or videos of the first XP-59A before or after it was modified to carry an open air ‘observer’ ahead of the pilot?

See any guns? 


Even Wikipedia knows guns were installed first in the later YP-59As. Unless Dorr can convincingly argue the XP-59’s ‘day one’ combat capability involved ramming relatively slow airplanes from behind, he is selling snake oil.
To drive home the point that even IF the XP-59A had been armed, it would not have been combat capable, consider how the later YP-59s versions were stomped by P-47s and P-38s in an air combat evaluation trial two years later (Wooldridge, pp13-15). The XP-59A would have been cannon-fodder in 1942. One would then have to ask what would have been the point to claim it was ‘combat ready’ when one knew it was also most likely ‘combat toast’? As the history played out, the limited run of P-59s were deemed unsuitable for combat (Wooldridge) and were relegated to the important, but far less challenging role of America’s first jet trainers.
Dorr now launches into a fairly standard litany of the anti-JSF crowd’s pet ‘stories’: 

The F-35 doesn't work. That's not news. The stealth coating is finicky and requires ground crews to perform labor-intensive maintenance with toxic materials. 

Doesn’t ‘work’? He needs to define what he means by ‘work’. Does he mean it isn’t finished with its development or that it can't or won’t work when its development is done? Next he needs to identify in what ways the F-35 doesn’t ‘work’. If it doesn’t work in some way now, why is that a problem now, before development is complete? Specify. Specify. Specify. Dorr never does.
Evidence of the “stealth coating” being “finicky”? We see none. In fact we’ve seen quite the opposite.
As to “toxic materials”, would that be significantly more toxic than most high quality paint used on high-performance aircraft? Too toxic to use safely? Hardly. Is Dorr trying to get Greenpeace in on his side? Even if the F-35 coatings are like other aircraft coatings, Dorr obviously isn’t aware of what the F-35 program is now working on to bring to fruition, and how structural fiber mat is already used to reduce the LO coating stack-up now.

Also, wouldn’t total environmental impact be more important than just focusing on coatings? Does Dorr give the F-35 any credit for being the 'greenest’ jet possible?
 
What next Mr. Dorr?

The helmet-mounted cueing system has been pronounced cured of its teething troubles not once but twice, and pilots say they still get vibration in certain flight regimes.

The helmet mounted display system is a man-machine interface far more complex than anything that I can remember, made more complex by the fact it has to work over a wide range of light and acoustic environments. This is a capability that is an advanced development of what has been pursued since at least the F-15 program’s early days. Did Dorr expect one of the most advanced features in the F-35 to be ‘easy’? Does he realize everything will “get vibration in certain flight regimes”? 
 The real question is: Is there a problem when and where it does happen? The program says ‘not really’ and Dorr offers no counter. He apparently assumes the worst and expects his readers to take his word for it at face value. I note here that the Gen 3 helmet (the ‘twice’ in Dorr’s ‘fixed twice’) development, in the normal course of its development, is just now being introduced. Dorr therefore can’t provide any answers –only old complaints about old problems. 
Personally, I think there will be more tweaks to the helmet simply because it involves ‘pilots’ and ‘vision’ and relearning how to operate and best use the new capability. Note my statement is as an opinion versus absolute fact: something one would have thought Dorr would have learned how to do a long time ago.

The cannon is not yet cleared for operation and may need to be replaced.

Having a cannon ’cleared for operation’ has everything to do with integrating weapons to a schedule and sequence, and even after anything is 'final' as in 'baseline' it ‘may be replaced’. We know having a gun can be important, if only to keep someone from maneuvering inside your other weapon minimums, but that is about it (Read the “Red Baron” report on the early Air War in SEA). We don’t know how important the gun’s performance will be in the overall scheme of things for the F-35’s overall weapon system effectiveness. 
Dorr’s point here is pretty pointless. IMHO, using a gun to strafe ground targets is a technique with diminishing returns as the battlefield threat situation evolves and increases over time. For that purpose, I think the gun will soon seem to only be there as a ‘just in case’ weapon.

The carrier-based F-35C may or may not have a working tailhook, after years of trial and error.

Pretty condescending dismissal of the C model development, but of course Dorr is wrong again.  
A. It is not trial and error. It is Find–Fix–Fly. A little thing we do within another thing we call ‘development’.
B. Dorr must not have been at Tailhook ’13 where it came out the Navy Customer gave the contractor a faulty wire model the first time around. The contractor needed a good one to develop a viable arresting system design in the first place. Does Dorr assert that is a problem with the F-35 Program or plane instead?
C. Dorr of course also ignores the successes the F-35C has had in catching the wire on land as the graduation to pending sea trials. He also ‘appears’ unaware that there should be further tweaks until development is complete.

The short take-off/vertical landing F-35B emits too much downward jet blast for routine operation aboard assault ships.

Dorr is alluding to changes being made to SOME ships in order to ensure the F-35Bs CAN operate routinely from their decks. BTW: It’s not actually ‘blast’ (‘X’ air mass at a ‘Y’ velocity) per se, so much as it is localized heat with the ‘blast’. My NAVAIR friends find this unremarkable: All new aircraft generate new ship requirements when they are first brought into the fleet.
Hint: The ships are there for the airplanes and the airplanes are the ships’ weapon systems-- not vice versa. Requirements writers make the planes as complementary to carrier designs as they can within the design trade space and change/modify the ship’s design no more than neccessary. Again…so what?

The Pentagon and industry conspired to continue building an aircraft that doesn’t function and no-one is being held to account.

Oooooh! Dorr thinks he can now claim a ‘conspiracy’ is afoot because he’s managed to ‘harrumph’ and ‘humbug’ his way through two thirds of a lame editorial? ‘Doesn’t function’? Get back to us when the F-35 is fielded in baseline Block 3F configuration, or even if it doesn’t look like it WILL get to block 3F. Until then, and again, so what?

What’s left for Dorr to rant about? Oh…apparently LOTS of things.He does go on....

The F-35 has 'an issue with the engine'. That's not news. It dates back to at least 2006, maybe earlier. Decades in development, the F-35 has a long history of problems with its Pratt & Whitney F135 turbofan engine that resulted in two groundings in recent years. Now, investigators are eyeing a further engine problem that occurred in the June 23 engine fire at Eglin on take-off and inflicted major damage to an F-35A (serial 10-5015, c/n AF-27). The pilot successfully shut down the aircraft and escaped unharmed. Even Lorraine Martin, Lockheed Martin's anointed apologist for the F-35, acknowledges that the fire is linked to 'an issue with the engine'. Years ago, for purely political reasons, the Pentagon nixed plans for an alternate engine, the more advanced and innovative General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136. Planning and installation of propulsion for the F-35 has been badly mismanaged and no-one is being held to account.

If Dorr was half the aviation writer he pretends to be, he’d have to acknowledge the F135’s development has been rather pedestrian all things considered and as compared with others in the long history of jet engine development. If this stuff was easy, everybody would be building them in their back yard. The only difference between the F135 engine and prior generations of effort is that the predecessors didn’t have a microscope and video cameras on them while they tried to do the little things that people who produce advanced technology call ‘development’.

Even the ‘groundings’ have been fairly few, usually precautionary, and short in comparison to a lot of others. I’d say that’s not too bad, considering the program is developing the biggest most powerful jet fighter turbofan ever, with the most raucous peanut gallery booing them ever. I would also assert these kinds of things occur far more often with mature, fielded jet engine technology than Dorr would be willing to let on, if he knew about them that is. Even civilian jet airliner engines have safety restrictions, stand downs for inspections, etc. from time to time. Example? 
How about the CFM56? One of the most widely used and successful engines in the world. Just the ‘active’ Airworthiness Directives open on the CFM56s can be found here. Continuous safety concern and monitoring is a fact of life, and Dorr should appreciate the value in that concern and monitoring.
If Dorr had also paid closer attention before the F136 engine was cancelled,  he would have also known that ‘Cost’ was the driver that overrode the ‘Risk’ of going to a single engine type. If he knew but still insisted on typing what he did….well, draw your own conclusions.
And of course, there simply had to be SOME politics in play at time. It was a Congressional topic of interest wasn’t it? 
From Dorr’s wilda** claim about a “more advanced and innovative General Electric/Rolls-Royce F136” I’d say politics (or marketing) was STILL in play. The F136 had the same kinds of difficulties the F135 had at a similar stage of development, but was rightfully considered immature compared to the F135 at the time of cancellation. In the spring of 2010, the F136 was only 700 hours into a 10,000 hour test program and had not been flight tested. No one knows what problems it would have encountered had it been fully developed. But in its cancellation, the F136 has become the mythical 'success-that-could-have-been-but-never-was' to the proverbial ‘some’ in the backbenches.

Dorr Goes 'All In'

Now, no matter how outrageous you might have found Dorr’s rant so far, in closing he’s about to go all ‘fundamentalist preacher’ on us. He’s casting his gaze beyond the F-35 program to identify what he apparently sees as the font of all defense acquisition ills. (Say Halleluiah!).

The F-35 is now the biggest, costliest aircraft program in history, yet its vicissitudes are only an emblem for a larger issue. In this capital on my side of the Atlantic, from the Air Staff (in the Pentagon Building) to K Street (where lobbyists hang their hats), the feeling is growing that the entire system for acquisition of military equipment has broken down
One former Pentagon analyst said, 'Industry now produces overpriced junk for our men and women in uniform and' - guess what? - 'no-one is being held to account'….

Ahhhh. The ubiquitous unnamed ‘former Pentagon analyst ‘. Was it Chuck Spinney or Pierre Sprey? Or was it someone else in the Faux-Reform Old Guard? Whoever it was, why not name them—unless the name itself would open the statement to doubt and dismissal? I’m looking for the source of this quote, but have been unable to find it so far. I’ll keep it in mind for a later revisit. Oh, and 'So What?

Critics often quote a January 17, 1961 speech by Dwight D. Eisenhower in which the 34th US President - one of history's great military commanders - warned of the dangers of a 'military industrial complex'. 'Ike' had intended to sound the alarm about a 'Congressional military industrial complex' but, in a rare lapse of judgment, deleted the first word before delivering the speech.

Here Dorr begins an argumentative ‘run home to Mama’ in the form of the mythical Military-Industrial Complex, but he once again creates a false context, an overreach, by simply getting the history ‘wrong’. 
IMHO the major problem with ‘Pop Historians’ like Dorr (or worse, as professional post-modern revisionist historians do) is that they tend to glom on to anything that supports their narrative and nothing that doesn’t. By doing so, they tend to propagate lies, half-truths, and rumors along with only carefully selected facts. Here Dorr promotes the discredited story that there was a draft of Eisenhower’s farewell speech with the word ‘Congressional’ linked to the MI terminology. As James Ledbetter has clearly observed and cogently summarized, there is no real evidence such a draft EVER existed. 
Again, even Wikipedia gets this one right, so one has to wonder how much of a ‘Pop Historian’ Dorr really is if he goes 0-2 up against Wikipedia within the confines one little ol' editorial.

But as they say on TV 'wait! there's more!'... 

Not even Eisenhower could have foreseen a Washington that could spend billions without successfully building a Littoral Combat Ship, an Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, or a Joint Strike Fighter. Just to cite one example, look at the way industry has suborned the Connecticut congressional delegation: the engine issue for the F-35 is small stuff compared to a single helicopter manufacturer's iron grip, without bidding or competing, on the next presidential helicopter and the US Air Force's combat rescue helicopter. There was no competition for any of these items because competition cuts costs and brings innovation, and no-one in Washington wants that - but that isn't news, either.

Wow. 
Dorr whipped up a real grab bag of misdirection and obfuscation. He rehashes the unsupported claim that the F-35 is ‘unsuccessful’ and expands the claim against the LCS (a still-ongoing Navy experiment with new strategies and new technical solutions) and the EFV (a cost vs. capability conundrum if there was one and still being sorted out). He then claims somebody (Pratt and Whitney I presume) has ‘suborned’ the Congresscritters of Connecticut without evidence, nor any mention of the activities of Congressional counterparts who pushed for the F136 (selective outrage much?). 
At least Dorr goes off the Peacenick-Leftist ‘Reformer’ reservation on this one. Perhaps he failed to get the memo that cancelling the F136 was a good thing?
 
Someone should also inform Mr. Dorr that competition takes many forms, as in the two LCS types with different technical approaches, winnowed down from many COMPETING solutions to compete for larger (and at one time possibly exclusive) future buys. He is also apparently unaware that sometimes competition isn’t advisable or possible (as when only one manufacturer bids on a small program like the Presidential helicopter program), or there isn’t enough money in the pot for developing a viable new alternative to an established helicopter design in meeting an existing mission shortfall (such as the AF Combat Rescue helicopter which was also stymied by requirements changes).
 
Dorr Drones On

If the world made sense, someone would pull the plug on the F-35 follies, squadrons waiting for a new fighter would receive other types instead, and bigwigs would be castigated, if not thrown into prison. But that's not news because – guess what? - no-one is being held to account.

No Mr. Dorr...
If the world made sense, people would stick to concerning themselves with things they actually know and understand, retire before they can no longer grasp the concepts needed to understand the world as it moves beyond their ken. In such a world, those that still insisted on making popping sounds about that which they know not, or have accused others of malfeasance without viable proof would be pointed at and continuously mocked into the oblivion they deserve. But that’s not happening because – guess what? – people who possess inconsequential knowledge constantly attempt to apply their inconsequential knowledge to consequential things to ill effect in this world and yet, are NEVER held to account.

Print Ref: The P-80 Shooting Star: Evolution of a Jet Fighter; E.T. Wooldridge; Smithsonian Institution Press; Washington DC; 1979

Update 1 November:

Recent comments in this post's thread have lead me to drop the veil a little on a post I've been working on for some time. It won't be a particularly long post, in fact it will be short compared to most that have taken this much time to prepare in the past. It is just this one requires more careful attention to the level of detail and scope to be covered, The working title of the upcoming post is

The draft of the opening paragraph of the post now reads:

How Faux Military Reform Machine works: Past and Present

This post is mostly for the folks who aren't old enough (or weren't paying attention), to have caught the 'Military Reform' crowd's act the first time the circus came to town. There's nothing really different about their 'message' this time ("complexity bad!", "costs too high!") but the machine itself has been retooled over the years in reaction to political, technical, and societal developments. To understand how the machine got to the way it is wired up now, we'll first discuss how the machine was kluged together in the first place. I won't go into great lists of who the players and the played 'were', or even 'are' . If it comes up at all it will be in context of the how the shaping of the machine itself was affected.

FYI: 
Mr Dorr will be shown to a "Loyal Babbler".  

Loyal Babblers play a major role

 in the Faux Military Reform Machine.