From Aviation Week

 

Global Opposition Movement Challenges JSF

Mar 4, 2009

By Bill Sweetman

 

The first major military aircraft project of the Internet-era, the Joint Strike Fighter, faces a new opposition: a global, networked movement comprising independent and think-tank analysts, retired air force leaders and industry professionals and politicians concerned with the JSF’s financial and operational risks. All of them have immediate access to worldwide news, official reports and program briefings to an extent that was inconceivable when the F-22 was at the same stage of development a decade ago.

 

There are a few main themes that run through many JSF critiques—some of which are complicated by classified information—but the F-35 Joint Program Office and Lockheed Martin have responded to many of them.

 

•Risk: Critics assert that the JSF program represents a huge gamble. Alternative fighters—such as the F-22 and F/A-18—are due to go out of production soon. The JSF has yet to fly 100 sorties out of a 5,000-mission flight-test program. It is 30 months late, over budget and (depending on variant) 2,300-4,800 lb. above the empty weight goals set in 2002.

 

Response: JSF leaders say the problems are behind them and the program has stayed largely on track since the redesign of 2004-05. Modeling, simulation and ground tests reduce the uncertainties of flight-testing, and the flight-test program has the resources—including more than 30 dedicated aircraft—to complete the program by mid-2014.

 

•Cost: Independent analysts note that the real acquisition costs of JSF—a key factor in averting an F-22-like “death spiral” of declining numbers and increasing unit costs—are much higher than the less than $60 million quoted in many briefings (and by the Norwegian and Dutch governments). U.S. government numbers point to unit procurement costs in the $100-million range for the F-35A, in early years of high-rate production.

 

Response: Program officials say the cost will remain stable, relative to the figures reported to customers, as long as decision-makers continue to support the program as planned and do not cut back on production. What seem to be unrealistically low numbers are legitimate “flyaway” costs, rather than full acquisition costs, and most real increases over the original cost goals are the result of historic factors. There are ongoing efforts to put together a fixed-price, multiyear, multinational binding contract for non-U.S. customers.

 

•Capability: The “fifth-generation” tag applied to the JSF, critics and competitors assert, does not mean total superiority. The JSF cannot carry as many air-to-air missiles as a Eurofighter Typhoon or Sukhoi Su-35 and does not match their speed and agility. The weapons load is restricted in size and diversity unless the aircraft operates in non-stealth mode—in which case it lacks now-standard defenses, such as a towed decoy.

 

Response: The JSF will operate in “stealth mode” in high-risk situations, giving it an advantage in air combat. The JSF pilot, with unique situational awareness, will have the option of declining close-quarters maneuvering combat while tracking and engaging adversaries from any direction. In surface-attack missions, accurate and lethal weapons and the JSF’s all-weather precision targeting system mean that fewer large munitions are needed.

 

•Stealth: While the JSF’s radar cross-section characteristics are fixed by shape and construction, radar processing and networking are advancing according to Moore’s law, and new systems (like VHF radars) designed to detect stealth targets are under development. They may be even more effective against export-standard JSFs if those aircraft do not have the same stealth technology as U.S.-operated aircraft.

 

Response: The JSF program declines to confirm or deny the existence of an “export stealth” configuration. “Anti-stealth” radars are unproven beyond the laboratory and test stage, and program officials are confident the JSF’s stealth technology will be good enough to “break the kill chain”—that is, prevent the defenses from consistently detecting, tracking and engaging the aircraft—for the life of the system.

 

•Sovereignty: A combination of security (protecting stealth-related materials and the radar cross-section characteristics of the aircraft, embedded in the mission planning system) and a tightly controlled, automated logistics system will render overseas operators dependent on the U.S. Because the only stealth-compatible data link on the aircraft is the Harris Multifunction Advanced Data Link, too, the aircraft won’t be able to talk to export customers’ other systems while in emission-controlled mode.

 

Response: Partners are happy enough with the level of sovereignty and national control provided, and the complex issue of connectivity with non-stealth assets is starting to be addressed.

 

•Future airpower challenges: Supporters of the F-22, the Next Generation Bomber, the U.S. Navy Unmanned Combat Air Vehicle and other platforms worry that the size of the JSF program will crowd out other projects that may be critically needed in future conflicts. Many defense analysts envisage a future of Afghanistan-type counterinsurgency missions, deterrence against China, or both—but a stealthy, 600-mi.-range fighter is not central for either.

 

Response: Affordable and stealthy, the JSF will still be a mainstay of future air forces and help promote coalitions. Funding of other programs is a budgetary issue for each customer.

 

•Stovl: The value of the short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35B, which will cost much more to buy and support than the F-35A but has inferior payload and range, is questionable. Stovl, as pioneered by the Harrier, made it possible to fly from short, unimproved air strips and small and multipurpose ships, but the much bigger JSF, with a hotter exhaust, will not be well-suited to those environments.

 

Response: USMC Commandant Gen. James Conway asserts that the F-35B will be able to operate from unimproved, hot-and-high airfields unsuited for conventional aircraft. The U.K., however, has deliberately maintained the option to switch to the F-35C in the design of its new carriers.

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog

 

JSF, F-22 and the F-Word

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 3/13/2009 7:17 AM CDT

 

The F-word dropped by US Navy Capt Wade Knudson, Joint Strike Fighter development program manager, at our DTAR conference on Thursday was "fall" as in that the first vertical landing test for the F-35B version of the Joint Strike Fighter will take place in "late summer or early fall".

 

Given the general principle of such time brackets, which is that the later date is usually the time when something is most likely to happen, we're looking at a first vertical landing in September or October.

 

That's three-to-four months later than the last date mentioned by the JSF team, nine long weeks ago - a statement which itself confirmed my own prediction of six months earlier, which drew a metric...er.. fall-ton of criticism on my head. And as the earlier piece points out, that's the end of the beginning of STOVL testing. (See page 28 of the current issue of DTI for a step-by-step guide to the vertical landing process.)

 

Knudson did not go into detail about the reasons for the delay, but commented that discussions were continuing about what engineering changes will be incorporated into the first STOVL aircraft, BF-1, before the first STOVL tests.

 

However, he says, the plan is still to complete operational testing by mid-2014. "Flight testing is premised on getting to 12 flights per month per aircraft", he says, noting that the first aircraft, AA-1, had flown 15 sorties in a four-week period at Edwards AFB last fall. But that productivity level won't be reached this year, he says - "We'll be getting new aircraft in the air" - and last year at Farnborough Lockheed Martin's F-35 senior vice-president, Tom Burbage, predicted that the program would be at the 12-per-day-per-jet mark by now.

 

Knudson acknowledges that the program has set a high bar for flight test, "but if we'd planned a ten-year flight test program that wouldn't have been affordable either." He says that the JSF team "will go with an alternative plan if we can't meet our goals, but we'll wait and see before we make any radical changes."

 

But delays, and the cost increases that would come with them, will also affect the US Air Force's view of how many F-22s and F-35s it wants to buy. Operational studies and analysis "favor more F-22s" in an F-35/F-22 mix, Maj Gen Jay Lindell, director for Global Power Program's in the USAF's acquisitions office, told the conference.

 

The main limit is how many F-22s the service can afford, Lindell said, but timing is also a factor. Although the USAF expects initial operational capability for the F-35 in 2013 (with the limited Block 2 software), full operational capability, defined as the ability to sustain combat with deployed aircraft, won't happen until 2017.

 

And Lindell says he won't even try to speculate about the F-35's price, apart from saying "it won't be as much as the F-22." But given that the service reckons that six F-22s could cover a large theater as well as ten F-35s, and that it sets F-22 flyaway cost as $142 million, the math says that the USAF gets equal value - but no better - with an F-35 flyaway of $85 million. Which happens to be a bit less than the USAF expects.

 

So, one could assume that delays and further overruns are the last thing that the JSF needs right now.

From Aviation Week's ARES Blog

 

Blue Skies Ahead for JSF

Posted by Bill Sweetman at 4/1/2009 8:01 AM CDT

 

The consensus among independent observers is that we're about to see rapid progress in the Joint Strike Fighter program. Few now doubt that the JSF team will notch up 150-plus flights before the end of Fiscal Year 2009 (at the end of September), getting well established in the short-take-off, vertical landing envelope and paving the way for next year's "12 flights per month per aircraft" goal.

 

Issues such as thermal management are now regarded as easily soluble. Operating at a high level of efficiency - around 98 per cent - the drive system will give off a manageable 450 kW of heat energy, which should be easily dissipated along with the heat from the clutch, designed to operate at around the same temperatures as high-performance aircraft brakes.

 

The team is well on its way to validating the 19 million lines of software code, noting that this is now a small number by car standards. The flight test team has established a technical help center in Bangalore to provide direct-to-the-cockpit VoIP resolution of any issues.

 

In the longer term, experts predict that by 2020, the JSF will be operational with the Joint Dual Range Air Dominance Missile (JDRADM) of which as many as a dozen will fit in the fighter's external bays.

 

In a surprising development, it's expected that the Air Power Australia group will soon issue a new report endorsing the JSF as the replacement for all the RAAF's current aircraft, and that the Swedish air force will announce that it is studying the JSF as an early replacement for the Gripen, due to its under-$60 million price tag and the advantages of interoperability with Norway.

 

[is anyone surprised that Sweetman chose JSF as the focus of this April Fool's Day joke? ]