Sky Talk

Prescient commentary on F-35

In a column posted on Huffington Post, Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, reprises a long ago commentary on the political finagling that led to the Joint Strike Fighter.

The August 2000 commentary (The JSF: One More Card In The House) by Chuck Spinney, former Air Force officer and civilian Pentagon weapons program cost analyst, makes some interesting points that in hindsight were eerily prescient of the situation that could be developing today.

The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), central to the Department of Defense's modernization
agenda, looks more and more like a case of "Here we go again." Why? Because:

* Without timely deliveries of 2,853 JSFs, beginning in 2007, the plan to modernize Air
Force, Navy, and Marine Corps tactical aviation (TacAir) forces won't happen.

* Without the promises of acquisition reform-cost savings, shorter development times,
increased production efficiencies, all without sacrificing capability-the economic
assumptions gluing together the entire DoD modernization program unravel.

The TacAir house of cards is the inevitable product of short-sighted decisions made as
the Cold War ended. In 1991 and 1992, the Air Force and Navy prematurely rushed the
F-22 and F/A-18E/F, respectively, into engineering and manufacturing development
(EMD) without determining how they would modernize the entire force over the long
term. In both cases, the aim was the same: build political support networks quickly before
the threat of a peace dividend became the skunk at the garden party - and hope that
the future would take care of itself.

And this part of the story is, well, we've seen it before. Full speed ahead and worry about the costs and consequences later.

In March 1999, the Congressional Budget Office reported to the Senate Armed Services Committee that JSF costs might be underestimated by as much a 50%; in March 2000, the General Accounting Office told Congress the development program should be lengthened to
reduce technical/cost risks: "To allow the JSF to proceed as planned - without maturing
critical technologies - would perpetuate conditions that have led to cost growth and
schedule delays in many prior DoD weapons system acquisition programs." The GAO claims DoD restructured the program so that the EMD decision will be made with even less information than originally planned, and the program has migrated toward the traditional practice of developing technologies and products concurrently.

Some interesting reading. Spinney, by the way, was a protege of the late Col. John Boyd, one of the fighter mafia leaders and a co-father of the F-16.

- Bob Cox

Lockheed eyes more F-16 sales

Reports this week out of the Dubai Air Show say Lockheed officials are pretty confident they'll sell more F-16s in the Middle East besides those now on order with Egypt and Morocco.

“We have very, very good prospects of selling more in the region,” Rick Groesch, regional vice president for the Middle East, told Defense News. The deal, which could be sealed by the end of the year, would be for the block 50 version of the F-16.

The mystery buyer is not Egypt, where Lockheed is in detailed negotiations for a sale. Iraq, Oman and Jordan are seen as potential buyers, a French aerospace executive said.

A Lockheed team is currently in Egypt for “final discussions” for a prospective purchase of 24 F-16s, Groesch said. The U.S. Congress has cleared the way for a sale with a notification and the present talks were aimed at finalizing contract details.

Lockheed sees potential sales of 100 to 200 F-16s around the world until the F-35 becomes available for export. That market estimate excludes the Indian competition for 126 fighters. As part of the Indian tender process, Indian officials will be invited to the U.S. to see live weapons firing by the F-16 at a number of sites in the last week of January and first week of February.

- Bob Cox

F-35: Wonder plane of future or boondoggle?

Winslow Wheeler and Pierre Sprey, apostles of the old Fighter Mafia that gave the world the F-16 Falcon fighter (and the F/A-18 Hornet as a side effect) and the A-10 Warthog, have written a piece on Huffington Post today questioning the real usefulness and affordability of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

It's the kind of provocative opinion piece sure to cause some heartburn and head shaking at Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon and elsewhere because it challenges conventional wisdom.

The F-35 is unaffordable. It is a technological kluge that will be less effective than airplanes it replaces. And it will increase our own combat losses.

That is not the consensus now; many will vociferously dispute each of the assertions stated above, and below. But, in time the finger pointing will start. That's when someone will have to pick up the pieces to give our pilots a war winning aircraft. The road between here and there will be neither smooth nor pretty, but it is time to take the first step.

Now before you go off muttering about left-wing wackos (it's on Huffington Post after all), remember that Sprey was a senior Pentagon official during the Nixon and Ford administations and worked with former Defense Secretary James Schlesinger to get the F-16 and A-10 developed, two pretty good warplanes. Wheeler was a Senate Armed Services Committee defense staffer for Republicans, although he now works with the Center for Defense Information, which is not to be confused with the Heritage Foundation on defense issues.

It's a good read with some thought provoking questions. Only time will tell us the answers, but there is a real debate taking place in some circles about the F-35's future -- especially among foreign governments less likely than the U.S. to spend as heavily on defense programs.

- Bob Cox

Dutch to rethink F-35 commitment, Israel ready to buy

Aviation Week's scribe Bill Sweetman, who digs deeply into the minutest details of fighter jet minutia, reports on the Ares blog that Dutch lawmakers have succeeded in pushing that country's Ministry of Defence to hold a full evaluation and competition for new jet fighters.

The Dutch are charter members of the JSF fan club, having contributed big chunks of cash to the development effort but proponents of European fighter jets have been arguing the country needed to look closer at other, possibly less expensive alternatives.

Parliament, according to the reports, did approve some funding for the purchase of test F-35 aircraft.

Israel, on the other hand, isn't waiting for much of anything, even a successful test flight. Lockheed Martin Chief Executive Bob Stevens confirmed today that the Israeli government has formally asked the U.S. government for permission to purchase F-35s.

Details would still have to be worked out between Israel and the U.S., but a formal order from Israel would likely come in 2011 with the first planes being available for beginning pilot training in 2011.

Lockheed expects to conduct the first test flight of the second F-35 within the next week or two.

- Bob Cox

Air Force has problems with F-16 corrosion, C-17 cracks

Flight International says the Air Force is now finding some significant corrosion problems with its fleet of older F-16s as well as some small, but Boeing says not serious fuselages crack in some C-17s, the later due to wear and tear from the engine thrust reversers.

Remember the Air Force has had problems in recent months with the deteriorating condition of some of its F-15C fighters and ordered widespread groundings until inspections of the entire fleet could be made.

- Bob Cox

Lockheed profits top estimates

Lockheed Martin reported fourth quarter profits of $799 million or $1.89 a share, 10 percent and 13 percent increases over 2006.

Profit for the company's Fort Worth-based Aeronautics division was $385 million for the quarter, a 1 percent increase, despite a 10 percent decrease in revenues. The division results reflected higher profit margins on the F-22 and F-16 fighter programs.

Earnings per share was 20 cents higher than the consensus estimate of Wall Street analysts.

JP Morgan analyst Joseph Nadol characterized  the Lockheed performance as a "solid beat" of Wall Street expectations and that aeronautics sales and margins "were better than expected." 

For the quarter Lockheed sales were $10.8 billion, even with 2006. Full year profits were $3.03 billion, a 20 percent increase. Revenues were $41.86 billion, a 6 percent increase over 2006.

- Bob

Biden critical of jet sale to Pakistan

Sen. Joe Biden doesn't think it's a particularly good idea for the U.S. government to allow Pakistan to be buying new F-16 fighter jets at a time when that country's government and political system seem to be on a fast descent into total chaos.

The planned sale of 18 F-16s, announced by the Bush administration in June 2006, resulted in a formal Pentagon contract being issued to Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. in Fort Worth on Monday. Biden said if any U.S. financial aid is involve din the sale then it runs counter to recent legislation passed by Congress.

- Bob

F-16 sale to Morocco

Lockheed Martin appears to have gained a new order for 24 F-16 fighter jets. The State Department has notified Congress it plans to allow Morocco to buy the fighters, along with weapons and other equipment for $2.4 billion.

The sale would provide more F-16 work for Lockheed's Fort Worth assembly plant. As of the end of September, the company's F-16 order backlog was down to 116 planes with production expected to continue into 2011.

- Bob

Air Force: F-22 fully operational

The Air Force says it's first F-22 Raptor squadrons are now fully operational, ready to-go-to-war if called upon. As Aviation Week writer Bill Sweetman notes, there's something amiss when it takes a quarter-century to develop a new fighter when it took only eight years to bring the F-16 online.

- Bob

Israelis have mixed feelings about F-35

Aviation Week reports that Israel will be buying some F-35s fighter early on but the Israeli Air Force thinks Lockheed Martin's fifth-generation fighter comes with some shortcomings.

Weaknesses include a one-man cockpit, the perishability of its stealth and the need to use Israeli-specific equipment. The IAF’s plan is to get more than 100 F-35s the minute they are available. What will be inside is still a question.

Actually, analysts recently told the Star-Telegram that Israel is likely buy far fewer than 100 planes in the early years, in part due to reasons above and also because it's devoting more time to fixing perceived shortcomings in its army following the not very successful 2006 war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.

AvWeek report contains interesting insight that seems to contradict many of the supposed great advantages of the F-35:

Furthermore, an influential retired IAF Force general says total sales will be limited by the JSF’s disadvantages. He points to its overdependence on stealth, a single crewman and what could be proprietary U.S. avionics. “Eventually somebody will come up with a way to detect it,” the general says. “A stealthy configuration also means you can’t carry additional weaponry on the exterior. The weapons system is more important than stealth. Israel will have F-35s, but not as many as we once thought.” Smaller numbers won’t detract from its deterrence value, the retired general concedes. But, he worries that in as little as five years, the JSF will start showing its limitations.

- Bob