Zabaniyah
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Posted Tuesday, Dec. 13, 2011
Problems with the F-35 joint strike fighter appear to be more numerous and more serious than the Defense Department has been willing to concede publicly, according to an internal report prepared for top Pentagon officials and obtained by the Star-Telegram.
The report, dated Nov. 29, sounds alarms that technological and performance problems, which will be costly to resolve, lie ahead for the already troubled and over-budget warplane. Among the issues raised are unexpectedly severe shaking and failures of an important electrical component. However, the report does not suggest that any of the problems cannot be overcome or that the F-35 will be unable to fulfill its intended capabilities.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Lockheed Martin said: "The report is still currently under review by senior Department of Defense officials. We expect to work closely with the F-35 Joint Program Office and Defense Department to understand and address any concerns expressed in the report."
Last week, Lockheed and the Pentagon announced a contract for the next batch of F-35s that calls for the company to shoulder more of the plane's rising costs.
The latest report comes as the Pentagon faces big budget cuts even as spending on the F-35 program is scheduled to rise sharply.
'Significant concerns' raised
The "Quick Look Review" has more than 50 pages, including numerous charts, illustrations and detailed projections. It was prepared starting in mid-October by a team headed by five senior Pentagon officials with expertise in weapons testing and engineering. It leaked from the Pentagon a week ago and was first reported by Bloomberg News. A copy was provided to the Star-Telegram this week.
The report is a damning assessment of the state of the F-35 program, said longtime Pentagon weapons procurement critic Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney, a former Air Force officer and Defense Department civilian weapons analyst.
"They basically said there's no showstopper," Spinney said, using the defense industry term for a single unmanageable scientific or technical challenge. But taken together, he said, the severity of myriad technical problems and the cost to fix them "are a showstopper."
From its inception, the F-35 -- being built for the Air Force, Navy and Marines -- has been touted by Lockheed officials and other backers for its "unmatched lethality" and affordability.
But a team of U.S. and British weapons testers found "unsatisfactory progress" in developing and testing nearly all the important air combat roles in which it would be used. Most of the flight testing in high-speed combat situations has yet to be performed, but military officials overseeing testing "expressed significant concerns with aircraft performance characteristics."
Frank Kendall, acting undersecretary of defense for weapons acquisition and development, requested the report to assess F-35 development so defense officials can decide how many planes to buy. The authors of the latest report say the Pentagon should go very slowly in buying more jets, essentially concluding that sophisticated design and modeling technology failed to predict problems in the aircraft and its critical combat systems.
In an interview with AOL Defense last week, the Navy officer now running the program, Vice Adm. David Venlet, criticized the long-ago decision to build dozens of the airplanes -- hundreds were planned -- while testing was still in the early stages.
In response to his comments, Lockheed said last week that the "F-35 test program is going extremely well as evidenced by the fact we have already exceeded the planned test flights and test points for 2011."
Frequent system failures
While the report doesn't conclude that the F-35 issues cannot be resolved, it strongly suggests that the worst problems may not yet be known and that the fixes will take years and vast new sums of money.
According to the report, key components of the F-35 and its Star Wars-like weapons and targeting systems have often failed or so far are worse than existing technology.
For example, the F-35 has "much higher-than-predicted buffet loads" -- severe shaking during high-speed maneuvers -- that may accelerate wear and tear.
The helmet-mounted display that lets the pilot view data from radar and electronic warfare systems has problems with its night vision. It's also unreadable when the aircraft is shaking.
And an electrical system that is supposed to perform for 2,200 hours failed or had problems that required replacement 16 times, mostly in the past year. If the system failed in flight, the plane would lose much of its electronics, its backup power, the pilot's primary oxygen supply and its cockpit pressurization.
The extent and long-term ramifications of the buffet problem won't be known until many more tests under even more rigorous flight conditions, the report says, and the results may not be known for two to three more years.
Lockheed has 6,100 people working directly on the F-35 program in Fort Worth. About 3,000 are production workers, and the rest are in development and support. Without increased production, employment at the plant won't grow and may decrease as development and engineering work winds down.
Read more: More problems with F-35 joint strike fighter are revealed | Business | Dallas Business, ...
Problems with the F-35 joint strike fighter appear to be more numerous and more serious than the Defense Department has been willing to concede publicly, according to an internal report prepared for top Pentagon officials and obtained by the Star-Telegram.
The report, dated Nov. 29, sounds alarms that technological and performance problems, which will be costly to resolve, lie ahead for the already troubled and over-budget warplane. Among the issues raised are unexpectedly severe shaking and failures of an important electrical component. However, the report does not suggest that any of the problems cannot be overcome or that the F-35 will be unable to fulfill its intended capabilities.
In a statement issued Tuesday, Lockheed Martin said: "The report is still currently under review by senior Department of Defense officials. We expect to work closely with the F-35 Joint Program Office and Defense Department to understand and address any concerns expressed in the report."
Last week, Lockheed and the Pentagon announced a contract for the next batch of F-35s that calls for the company to shoulder more of the plane's rising costs.
The latest report comes as the Pentagon faces big budget cuts even as spending on the F-35 program is scheduled to rise sharply.
'Significant concerns' raised
The "Quick Look Review" has more than 50 pages, including numerous charts, illustrations and detailed projections. It was prepared starting in mid-October by a team headed by five senior Pentagon officials with expertise in weapons testing and engineering. It leaked from the Pentagon a week ago and was first reported by Bloomberg News. A copy was provided to the Star-Telegram this week.
The report is a damning assessment of the state of the F-35 program, said longtime Pentagon weapons procurement critic Franklin C. "Chuck" Spinney, a former Air Force officer and Defense Department civilian weapons analyst.
"They basically said there's no showstopper," Spinney said, using the defense industry term for a single unmanageable scientific or technical challenge. But taken together, he said, the severity of myriad technical problems and the cost to fix them "are a showstopper."
From its inception, the F-35 -- being built for the Air Force, Navy and Marines -- has been touted by Lockheed officials and other backers for its "unmatched lethality" and affordability.
But a team of U.S. and British weapons testers found "unsatisfactory progress" in developing and testing nearly all the important air combat roles in which it would be used. Most of the flight testing in high-speed combat situations has yet to be performed, but military officials overseeing testing "expressed significant concerns with aircraft performance characteristics."
Frank Kendall, acting undersecretary of defense for weapons acquisition and development, requested the report to assess F-35 development so defense officials can decide how many planes to buy. The authors of the latest report say the Pentagon should go very slowly in buying more jets, essentially concluding that sophisticated design and modeling technology failed to predict problems in the aircraft and its critical combat systems.
In an interview with AOL Defense last week, the Navy officer now running the program, Vice Adm. David Venlet, criticized the long-ago decision to build dozens of the airplanes -- hundreds were planned -- while testing was still in the early stages.
In response to his comments, Lockheed said last week that the "F-35 test program is going extremely well as evidenced by the fact we have already exceeded the planned test flights and test points for 2011."
Frequent system failures
While the report doesn't conclude that the F-35 issues cannot be resolved, it strongly suggests that the worst problems may not yet be known and that the fixes will take years and vast new sums of money.
According to the report, key components of the F-35 and its Star Wars-like weapons and targeting systems have often failed or so far are worse than existing technology.
For example, the F-35 has "much higher-than-predicted buffet loads" -- severe shaking during high-speed maneuvers -- that may accelerate wear and tear.
The helmet-mounted display that lets the pilot view data from radar and electronic warfare systems has problems with its night vision. It's also unreadable when the aircraft is shaking.
And an electrical system that is supposed to perform for 2,200 hours failed or had problems that required replacement 16 times, mostly in the past year. If the system failed in flight, the plane would lose much of its electronics, its backup power, the pilot's primary oxygen supply and its cockpit pressurization.
The extent and long-term ramifications of the buffet problem won't be known until many more tests under even more rigorous flight conditions, the report says, and the results may not be known for two to three more years.
Lockheed has 6,100 people working directly on the F-35 program in Fort Worth. About 3,000 are production workers, and the rest are in development and support. Without increased production, employment at the plant won't grow and may decrease as development and engineering work winds down.
Read more: More problems with F-35 joint strike fighter are revealed | Business | Dallas Business, ...
