Fórum Defesa Brasil

Feb. 3, 2009
Strike One.
Just posted:


Young: Unrealistic Prototypes Responsible for Hefty JSF Cost Growth
Inadequately funding prototypes during the development of major weapon systems will inevitably lead to greater cost growth down the road in future acquisitions, according to the Pentagon's top weapons buyer.

Citing the multiservice F-35 Joint Strike Fighter as example No. 1, Pentagon acquisition executive John Young believes billions of dollars in additional development costs could have been avoided if the program office invested more during the prototyping portion of the acquisition competition.

In a Jan. 16 memo to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Young writes that “JSF technology demonstrators were not adequately robust, leading to optimistic estimates of the structural weight of the aircraft.”



DOCUMENT ALERT:


Young Memo on JSF Prototyping
In a Jan. 16, 2009, memo to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England on the Joint Strike Fighter's development, Pentagon acquisition chief John Young writes that "the fundamental lesson in JSF is the critical importance of robust funding in the early, prototype phase of development." The memo was obtained by Inside the Air Force.


Much more from John Young -- who is not going quietly

DoD Faulted for JSF Cost Overruns
February 04, 2009
Fort Worth Star-Telegram

The Pentagon's top weapons buyer says the massive cost increases and delays incurred on the F-35 joint strike fighter program were inevitable because the Defense Department didn't spend enough money up front to build realistic prototypes.

In a recent memo, John Young, undersecretary of defense for weapons acquisition and development, said the failure to build true prototypes led Pentagon planners and the Lockheed Martin led contractor team to come up with unrealistic cost and weight estimates.

The F-35 "leads the way in all recent cost growth analyses" of Pentagon weapons programs, Young said in the memo to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reported Tuesday by Inside Defense.

The most recent public cost estimate of the F-35 program, prepared in late 2007, is that it will cost the Pentagon $298 billion (in 2001 dollars) to develop and buy 2,400 aircraft for the Air Force, Navy and Marines, up from an initial estimate of $229 billion, according to Young's memo.

New estimates, expected to be released soon, are expected to show further cost growth.

Young and Gates have both said recently the Pentagon needs to spend early to develop prototypes of weapons systems so the technical difficulties and likely costs are understood.

For the JSF program, the Pentagon contracted with Boeing and Lockheed to build "technology demonstrators" and not "true prototypes."

As a result, Young said, "the future of JSF cost growth was largely written in 2001 when budget and pricing decisions were made...based on inadequate knowledge gained from the JSF technology demonstrators."

"Lockheed Martin's performance has been adequate, but not great," the memo said.


© Copyright 2009 Fort Worth Star-Telegram. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.zinio.com/express3?issue=368748439&p=24

Artigo do Bill Sweetman fresquinho.

CAIV (Cost as An Independent Variable), por incrivel que pareça até agora, faz parte do programa do F/A-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Isto significa que a capacidade no desenvolvimento do sistema pode ser negociada de modo a cumprir metas de custo. Isso inclui tecnologia que no papel é bonita, mas é impraticável durante o desenvolvimento.

A partir de agora vamos ter CAIV em peso, ou seja será que vem ai um monstro bordado a ouro?

Para perceberem o que é e como funciona o CAIV:



[[]]'s

"To live in a world that needs no jet fighters...

That needs no weapons...

That needs no protection...

That needs no relief...

Is a wonderful dream...

It is not however, reality...

We will insure that...





Novo video promocional da LM.


[[]]'s

Thursday, February 12, 2009
F-35 Price Questions

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over the price of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Or maybe the people marketing the aircraft prefer it that way. Even if the aircraft has no more technical problems there will still be problems with reaching an “affordable” price. “Affordable” is one of the words on the JSF patch. With the aircraft having only around 2% of its test flying done, we don’t know what other cost will be incurred through discovery of technical problems in the coming years of flight testing.


Lockheed spokespeople are rather limited on what they can say about the price of the aircraft for a number of reasons. Normally what one would get a few years ago was that the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant could be had for around $40-some million each adjusted for 2002 dollars inflation. Later as there was some cost growth in the program and it would get a little higher as mentioned below.


News articles like this and this pave the way for ready-made disinformation to be feed to the public simply because a journalist is not informed enough to ask the right questions.

..."depending on the variant — has a price tag of somewhere in the $60 million to $90 million-plus range”…

There are a number of hurdles for the price of the F-35 which pull the rug out from under the above statement when one considers all the facts. For the sake of Lockheed Martin we will stick with the fly-away cost which doesn’t give you much except rolling it out the factory door. The USAF, who is the biggest buyer of the F-35 predicts that when it purchases 1763 aircraft, that the average cost each will be somewhere around $83 million dollars.




This looks OK for a U.S. defense program until you examine things closer. This number also contradicts a lower price mentioned by the head of the U.S. Defense Department Mr. Gates some months ago.

The USAF is near broke and has stated that when full rate production starts up in 2014, that the best it can fund is 48 F-35s per year. This is way below the original plan.(PDF) The new boss of the USAF has stated that he will do his best to get the funding back up to normal. All of this was before the economic meltdown. There is the plan and then there is reality.


The other problem with the USAF is that if they can only pay for 48 F-35s a year, production will go out to 2035-37 in order to field 1763 aircraft. Since no one can predict what Congress will authorize even 5 or 10 years ahead, there isn’t any realistic proof what will be paid for in the coming years. The plan to 2035-37 is nothing more than hope and the people that made it will be long into their retirement or dead by then. With that kind of timeline, predicting that the average cost of each F-35 for the USAF will be $83 million dollars has no reasonable expectation of becoming reality. It is common knowledge that the USMC and USN variants cost more than the USAF variant.

With cuts coming in the 2010 defense budget, the F-35 may face serious trouble. This program is very tightly woven. Everyone has to buy to the plan or there will be an increase in price.

So what about all the “mistake jets”? Mistake jets are the low rate initial production (LRIP) aircraft. As it is now, System Design and Development (SDD), the current phase of the program where people are still trying to figure out how to cobble everything together, won’t end until the year 2014. This means that with a whole variety of discovery possible in flight testing, LRIP F-35s numbering in the hundreds will have to be repaired and fixed. With the F-35 having a large amount of complexity and the most software in any combat aircraft, the fix-it work could grow to alarming proportions.

Right now, no one knows what the F-35 JSF will cost because there just is not enough information out there to prove it. Future technical problems or no, if Congress cuts money from the program, the famed “death spiral” that risky defense programs get themselves into will begin in earnest. It will be interesting to see the U.S. Marine Corps start their initial operating capability (IOC) in 2012 with such a small amount of testing done. And the F-35 JSF was never ever prototyped. The makers of the jet are still trying to figure stuff out that should have been done already. The F-35 program portrays an image that one should ask, “what’s wrong with this picture?”.

http://www.jsf.mil/downloads/documents/ ... 202007.pdf

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?sect ... icle=60655

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?sect ... icle=60656

soultrain escreveu:Thursday, February 12, 2009
F-35 Price Questions

There still seems to be a lot of confusion over the price of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Or maybe the people marketing the aircraft prefer it that way. Even if the aircraft has no more technical problems there will still be problems with reaching an “affordable” price. “Affordable” is one of the words on the JSF patch. With the aircraft having only around 2% of its test flying done, we don’t know what other cost will be incurred through discovery of technical problems in the coming years of flight testing.


Lockheed spokespeople are rather limited on what they can say about the price of the aircraft for a number of reasons. Normally what one would get a few years ago was that the conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant could be had for around $40-some million each adjusted for 2002 dollars inflation. Later as there was some cost growth in the program and it would get a little higher as mentioned below.


News articles like this and this pave the way for ready-made disinformation to be feed to the public simply because a journalist is not informed enough to ask the right questions.

..."depending on the variant — has a price tag of somewhere in the $60 million to $90 million-plus range”…

There are a number of hurdles for the price of the F-35 which pull the rug out from under the above statement when one considers all the facts. For the sake of Lockheed Martin we will stick with the fly-away cost which doesn’t give you much except rolling it out the factory door. The USAF, who is the biggest buyer of the F-35 predicts that when it purchases 1763 aircraft, that the average cost each will be somewhere around $83 million dollars.




This looks OK for a U.S. defense program until you examine things closer. This number also contradicts a lower price mentioned by the head of the U.S. Defense Department Mr. Gates some months ago.

The USAF is near broke and has stated that when full rate production starts up in 2014, that the best it can fund is 48 F-35s per year. This is way below the original plan.(PDF) The new boss of the USAF has stated that he will do his best to get the funding back up to normal. All of this was before the economic meltdown. There is the plan and then there is reality.


The other problem with the USAF is that if they can only pay for 48 F-35s a year, production will go out to 2035-37 in order to field 1763 aircraft. Since no one can predict what Congress will authorize even 5 or 10 years ahead, there isn’t any realistic proof what will be paid for in the coming years. The plan to 2035-37 is nothing more than hope and the people that made it will be long into their retirement or dead by then. With that kind of timeline, predicting that the average cost of each F-35 for the USAF will be $83 million dollars has no reasonable expectation of becoming reality. It is common knowledge that the USMC and USN variants cost more than the USAF variant.

With cuts coming in the 2010 defense budget, the F-35 may face serious trouble. This program is very tightly woven. Everyone has to buy to the plan or there will be an increase in price.

So what about all the “mistake jets”? Mistake jets are the low rate initial production (LRIP) aircraft. As it is now, System Design and Development (SDD), the current phase of the program where people are still trying to figure out how to cobble everything together, won’t end until the year 2014. This means that with a whole variety of discovery possible in flight testing, LRIP F-35s numbering in the hundreds will have to be repaired and fixed. With the F-35 having a large amount of complexity and the most software in any combat aircraft, the fix-it work could grow to alarming proportions.

Right now, no one knows what the F-35 JSF will cost because there just is not enough information out there to prove it. Future technical problems or no, if Congress cuts money from the program, the famed “death spiral” that risky defense programs get themselves into will begin in earnest. It will be interesting to see the U.S. Marine Corps start their initial operating capability (IOC) in 2012 with such a small amount of testing done. And the F-35 JSF was never ever prototyped. The makers of the jet are still trying to figure stuff out that should have been done already. The F-35 program portrays an image that one should ask, “what’s wrong with this picture?”.

http://www.jsf.mil/downloads/documents/ ... 202007.pdf

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?sect ... icle=60655

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?sect ... icle=60656

Cristo Maria

Isso é quase uma transcrição de textos meus, colocados aqui anteriormente!!! Oo

O texto é de quem?

Cristo Maria

Isso é quase uma transcrição de textos meus, colocados aqui anteriormente!!! Oo

O texto é de quem?

Acho que é de um tal de...Mr.Sintras

Postado no Aviation Forum:
http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=88277

Informacoes interessantes, nao so sobre o F-35...



LM about the F-35s A2A performance

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Found this in another forum, posted by Gerog Mader, Janes correspondend. Exact source hasn't been given:


Quote:
Lockheed Martin has defended the air-to-air capabilities of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) while conceding that the aircraft's performance in combat within visual range (WVR) will only be marginally superior to that of its fourth-generation and advanced fourth-generation counterparts.

Briefing Australian journalists at Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth facility on 2 February, Jerry Mazanowski, senior manager of air systems in the company's strategic studies group, compared the air-to-air performance of the F-35 with that of the Eurofighter, Dassault Rafale, Saab Gripen, Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet and Sukhoi Su-30MKI. He said that in a typical combat configuration carrying four internally stored AIM-120 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs), the F-35 was marginally faster than the Su-30MKI carrying eight beyond-visual-range (BVR) missiles and no external fuel tanks; and that it was faster than the Eurofighter, Gripen C, Rafale and F/A-18 carrying four BVR and two WVR missiles and a single external fuel tank (two in the Eurofighter's case).

On an air-to-air mission with a radius of 200 n miles, no external fuel tanks but the same missile load and a requirement to accelerate from Mach 0.8 to Mach 1.8 at 30,000 ft, the F-35 was shown coming second last. With a requirement involving the same acceleration and the aircraft tasked for a 600 n mile 'out and back' mission, Mazanowski said the F-35 was "nothing stellar but certainly not an underperformer in this category".

When accelerating from Mach 0.6 to 0.95 - important if evading a surface-to-air missile or in combat with other aircraft - the F-35 showed a comparable performance to its counterparts.

Discussing maximum mission radius, Mazanowski presented an air-to-air mission profile in which all the aircraft took off with a weapon load, remained at high altitude and returned after about a minute of combat. All but the F-35 and Su-30MKI were carrying three external fuel tanks.

Under this scenario, the Rafale had a maximum mission radius of 896 n miles, the F/A-18 816 n miles, the F-35 751 n miles, the Eurofighter 747 n miles, the Su-30MKI 728 n miles and the Gripen 502 n miles.

According to Mazanowski, the JSF joint programme office required the modelling to assume an F-35 engine at the end of its life with 5 per cent fuel degradation and a 2 per cent reduction in thrust. The counterpart aircraft were given the benefit of the doubt wherever platform and systems performance were not clear - as, for example, in the assumption that all five would have active electronically scanned array radars operational within five years.

Modelling based on operational experience and simulation showed that 72 per cent of future engagements would be BVR, 31 per cent would be at transitional range (between 8 n miles and 18 n miles) and 7 per cent WVR.
Mazanowski acknowledged that these figures did not take account of BVR engagements that might develop into WVR engagements.

Taking all salient aircraft characteristics into account and utilising the Brawler modelling and simulation tool, the F-35 showed a better than six to one relative loss exchange ratio while the other aircraft scored less than one to one. This was in a four-versus-four scenario against what Mazanowski described as a "threat aircraft in the not-too-distant future".

He attributed this almost entirely to the F-35's superior stealth and situational awareness.

In a WVR engagement, the differences in the capabilities of the various aircraft were barely measurable. Although the F-35 was assumed not to be carrying externally mounted short-range AIM-9X missiles to avoid increasing its radar cross-section, Mazanowski praised the short-range performance of AMRAAM.

"The WVR environment, once you get there, is very awkward and very lethal. We think the F-35 may have some limited advantage in situational awareness with its DAS [distributed aperture system] and hopefully there would be enough wingmen to work their way out of the situation," Mazanowski said.

He added: "One guy has a little bit of an advantage in WVR and can shoot first, but both folks end up not doing well."

Esse texto de marketing é muito bom, fala, poe termos técnicos, mas o que de relevante diz? NADA.

O unico verbo é "faster"!!!? O que é isso? Se eu entrar numa corrida é melhor levar o F/A-35? Mas o carro "faster" ganha corridas? "Faster" pouco ou nada quer dizer, é mais manobravel? Tem a velocidade máxima maior? Atinge essa velocidade mais rápido? Etc. Etc.

Outro pormenor que tendem a esquecer é que o canhão do F/A-35 é um pod, excepto numa das versões, salvo erro.

[[]]'s

Sintra escreveu: Cristo Maria

Isso é quase uma transcrição de textos meus, colocados aqui anteriormente!!! Oo

O texto é de quem?

O texto é de um Australiano, Eric Palmer, ex USAF fotografo.

http://worldwidewarpigs.blogspot.com/20 ... ation.html

Se acha que é uma transcrição, ainda bem. Quer dizer que há muita gente a por as mesmas questões.

[[]]'s

Feb 7, 2009 23:17 | Updated Feb 8, 2009 3:55

Sky-high price of US fighter jet endangers Israeli purchase

By YAAKOV KATZ

Recent hikes in the price of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), the fifth-generation stealth fighter jet, are holding up the signing of a contract between the Israel Air Force and Lockheed Martin, a senior IDF source told The Jerusalem Post.

Last month, the Pentagon acknowledged for the first time that earlier predictions that the plane would cost $50 million-$60 million were inaccurate and that the real cost of the plane would be closer to $100m.

Air Force Maj.-Gen. Charles R. Davis, head of the JSF Program in the Pentagon, conceded in a talk at the Brookings Institution that the cost would likely be somewhere between $80m.-$90m.

The IDF source, who is familiar with the project and the necessary budget, said the IDF believed the cost would pass the $100m. mark, making it very difficult for Israel to follow through with its initial intention to purchase 75 aircraft.

He said that if not for operational considerations, the IDF would have preferred to wait several years and then order the aircraft once the price goes down.

In October the Pentagon announced plans to sell Israel up to 75 JSFs. Nine countries - including Britain, Turkey and Australia - are members of the JSF program. Israel enjoys the status of a Security Cooperation Participant after paying $20 million in 2003 to obtain access to information accumulated during the development of the jet.

A defense industry source familiar with the negotiations between Israel and the US said the talks were "tough," but predicted that a deal would be reached in the coming months and that Israel would finally place an official order.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite? ... 2FShowFull

soultrain escreveu:Esse texto de marketing é muito bom, fala, poe termos técnicos, mas o que de relevante diz? NADA.

O unico verbo é "faster"!!!? O que é isso? Se eu entrar numa corrida é melhor levar o F/A-35? Mas o carro "faster" ganha corridas? "Faster" pouco ou nada quer dizer, é mais manobravel? Tem a velocidade máxima maior? Atinge essa velocidade mais rápido? Etc. Etc.

Outro pormenor que tendem a esquecer é que o canhão do F/A-35 é um pod, excepto numa das versões, salvo erro.

[[]]'s

Po Soultrain,

Tudo que qualquer fabricante fala eh marketing, seja da Dassault, da Sukhoi e da Eurofighter. Se vc da credito a eles, deveria dar tb a LM.

Nos slide postados aqui, anteriormente, a LM na sua propaganda eh especifica e diz que eh mais agil e mais rapido. Agora repete. Acredita quem quiser.

Para quem posta sem parar sobre o F-35, deveria saber que a versao da USAF e da maioria dos clientes externos, que sera produzida em maior quantidade, possui canhao interno.

As versoes B (VTOL - Marines e RN/RAF) e C (US Navy):
The F-35C will make up for capabilities lost when the A-6 Intruder retired from Navy service in February 1997. The wings (with folding tips) of the F-35C will span nine feet more than the wings of the F-35A and F-35B models. Like the F-35B, it also will have a stealthy, missionized 25 mm belly gun.

[]s

Santiago escreveu:

soultrain escreveu:Esse texto de marketing é muito bom, fala, poe termos técnicos, mas o que de relevante diz? NADA.

O unico verbo é "faster"!!!? O que é isso? Se eu entrar numa corrida é melhor levar o F/A-35? Mas o carro "faster" ganha corridas? "Faster" pouco ou nada quer dizer, é mais manobravel? Tem a velocidade máxima maior? Atinge essa velocidade mais rápido? Etc. Etc.

Outro pormenor que tendem a esquecer é que o canhão do F/A-35 é um pod, excepto numa das versões, salvo erro.

[[]]'s

Po Soultrain,

Tudo que qualquer fabricante fala eh marketing, seja da Dassault, da Sukhoi e da Eurofighter. Se vc da credito a eles, deveria dar tb a LM.

Nos slide postados aqui, anteriormente, a LM na sua propaganda eh especifica e diz que eh mais agil e mais rapido. Agora repete. Acredita quem quiser.

Para quem posta sem parar sobre o F-35, deveria saber que a versao da USAF e da maioria dos clientes externos, que sera produzida em maior quantidade, possui canhao interno.

As versoes B (VTOL - Marines e RN/RAF) e C (US Navy):
The F-35C will make up for capabilities lost when the A-6 Intruder retired from Navy service in February 1997. The wings (with folding tips) of the F-35C will span nine feet more than the wings of the F-35A and F-35B models. Like the F-35B, it also will have a stealthy, missionized 25 mm belly gun.

[]s

Bem, logo teremos os verdadeiros voando, aí vai dar para saber, o interessante é que Rafale, Typhoon estão ainda com a primeira série de sua motorização, quer dizer, são as versões mais fracas. E os caras estão dizendo que o F-35 é mais rápido, desde que, não uso tanques subalares, e que os outros usem. Fala em Su-30MKI, e não compara com o Su-35.

É certo que o F-35B terá um desempenho geral piorado, sobretudo o alcance.

Outro ponto interessante, admitem que o Rafale é o caça com maior alcance entre os tipos comparados. Uma luz do debate sobre o Rafale e o F-18E na performance do alcance.

[]´s

Mas o F-35 também está com o primeiro motor. Quando trocar será superior novamente aos outros, se é que o Rafale usará o 88-3. E desempenho da EJ 2000 é superior ao M-88-2-4. Não dá nem para comparar com a F-135. Uma delas já tem mais empuxo do que duas 88-2-4...