Catholic Online Forum

The multi-billion-dollar F-35 Joint Strike Fighter chosen by Australia as its replacement combat aircraft is again flying through turbulence, with strong criticism from a Pentagon general about the system used to build it.

The Joint Strike Fighter has been billed as the smartest fighter jet on the planet, designed to strike enemies in the air and on the ground without being detected by radar.

But Australia's most expensive defence acquisition has experienced soaring costs and is now at least five years late.

US Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, who has recently taken over as head of the JSF project team, says putting the plane into production before it has been tested properly - a process called concurrency - has caused major problems.

"A large amount of concurrency, that is, beginning production long before your design is stable and long before you've found problems in test, creates downstream issues where now you have to go back and retrofit airplanes and make sure the production line has those fixes in them. And that drives complexity and cost," he told tonight's Four Corners.

In a statement to Four Corners, Angus Houston said: "The System Design and Development phase was non-binding and the Australian Government could opt out if it so wished."

He added: "I am still convinced that the JSF is the right air combat aircraft to meet Australia's future security needs."

Let me preface by saying that I am generally in favor of the USA having the best quality weapons systems available so that we can maximize the effectiveness of every war fighter so that we don't have to have as many of them.

But I've been watching the JSF situation for many years and am rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is an irrecoverable boondoggle. It is far too expensive and I am not sure of the wisdom of mass producing a backbone of highly stealthy fighters in the first place because of the massive performance compromises that stealth requires.

If we had a choice, I would recommend we cancel JSF and go back to the drawing board. At this point that is not an option.

Even the F22, even if its production line had not been disassembled, is not a suitable plane to use instead of th. JSF. So you don't want them, even if you could have them.

Admittedly the JSF program should have spent more time in development testing however, the problems with the aircraft are far from "irrecoverable".

The attributes of the fighter go far beyond being stealthy, but this fighter exceeds the maneuverability and war-fighting capability of the Harrier and many other international fighters as demonstrated in flight testing.

being stealthy in the high-tech war arenas of today is a practical necessity by the way,

The capability of the F-22, a super-maneuverable, very high-speed fighter is by design incompatible with the design concept of the JSF, we cannot equate the two.

I would think any ally would be well served by the F-16, F-22 and with a bit of design resolution, the JSF.

I disagree. The problem is in the concept of the fighter, IMO, not just in its execution.


Of course. But the Harrier is about the least-capable frontline fighter out there. It's probably not as maneuverable or as fast or able to carry the same warload as the Typhoon or the Rafale or even the F-15 or the Su-37 (which are previous gen fighters) because those systems don't compromise those functionalities in the name of stealth.


Oddly, the US is the ONLY nation that believes this. Even the next-gen fighters coming out of Russia are not full-on stealth systems. I believe that the penetration bombers, cruise missiles, attack aircraft, and air dominance fighters need to be stealthy, but not EVERY fighter needs to be. That's precisely why we have 50 B-2's and 500 B-52's.


Correct. Which is why I told James that the F-22 is not suitable to replace the JSF.


But
a) F-22's cannot be manufactured anymore.
b) Even if they could, the USA won't let anyone else buy them.

...

Jeff, I'll let my forty years in aerospace engineering guide my opinion. I've been around government contracts long enough to fully understand the pressure to hurry-up imposed on prime contractors and subsequently on all the subs; it is very typical for a government contracted product to be coerced onto the market before the product is fully proofed.

Jeff, I'll let my forty years in aerospace engineering guide my opinion. I've been around government contracts long enough to fully understand the pressure to hurry-up imposed on prime contractors and subsequently on all the subs; it is very typical for a government contracted product to be coerced onto the market before the product is fully proofed.

...the USA won't let anyone else buy them.

Of course it is. But one of the problems that's going on right now, that may not have been the case in the past, is that the services don't really know, and don't really communicate, what they want. It's also driving the boondoggle that is the LCS.

...it is very typical for a government contracted product to be coerced onto the market before the product is fully proofed.

Bob,



This is a little different. See what the ABC piece says about "concurrency".

...the contractors at this level of prestige cannot afford to be cavalier

Bob,



Hence the secret deal with John Howard in a Washington hotel?

The Pentagon has grounded all of its F-35 fighter planes after discovering a crack in part of a jet engine.

It has suspended all flights operated by the fleet of 51 aircraft while a crack in a turbine blade in one of the engines is investigated.

Matthew Bates, a spokesman for engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, said the Pentagon's F-35 program office had decided to lift a temporary suspension of flight operations after it conducted extensive tests on the affected engine part.

The tests showed a crack in a turbine blade stemmed from the "unique operating environment" in flight tests rather than a design flaw, he said.