F-35 News

[sapao]

Já tem gente pensando igual a gente ai fora:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-d ... and-f.html

E ai, qual das 4 opções vocês acham que vinga? Lembrando que a 2 e a 4 dependem da produção do F-35 engrenar.

[soultrain]

Saturday, July 24, 2010
Senior Australian Defence leadership deception on the F-111 retirement

Dumbing down Australian Defence senior leadership comes at a cost. The result is that you have an organisation which, most of the time, can only react to PowerPoint slides from sales briefings.

This dumbing down has resulted in a complete removal of Australia's long range strike capability.

Lets look at some of the misinformation pushed by defence over the F-111 retirement.

1. It isn't survivable for future threats in the region.

This is an incredible claim when you consider the following.

Based on the very limited statements that defence makes on this topic; the Super Hornet and F-35 won't be survivable for future threats. Defence claims that the F-111 would have to be escorted for strike missions. This depends. If an air campaign requires destroying enemy fighter aircraft this requires an air superiority fighter and stand-off weapons. Neither the Super Hornet or F-35 can qualify in this regard. Against advanced fighters being fielded into the Pacific Rim over the coming years, only aircraft like the F-22 qualify for this job. This aircraft has the ability to pick a fight on its own terms because it has the speed (with the fuel economy of super-cruise) to setup an attack or re-setup as needed. The F-22s sub-sonic super-maneuver capability carries over to Mach speed with quick Mach turns for the re-setup and to reduced the no-escape zone (NEZ) of enemy missiles. The F-35 depends on narrow-band export-friendly stealth technology and the Super Hornet will just be run down or bingo-fueled to a certain death. The only air superiority that Australian Defence leadership is buying into is that of the enemy.

"Survivability" of the F-111 is something like this. It has growth room for numerous kinds of defensive avionics and modern weapons. For instance; defence cheerleaders of group-think state that the new aircraft that RAAF will be getting are networked. Big deal. The B-52 (older than the F-111) is networked with various technologies. There is enough space and power output to put any kind of network gear into the F-111 that you want for pennys on the dollar of gold-plated solutions. So on this topic, yet again, senior defence leadership is misleading our elected officials.

Next, the F-111 can go down below the enemies ground based radar horizon when needed. It was designed for low level penetration. This kind of move burns fuel at a higher rate. Fuel that the Super-Hornet or F-35 won't have.

Speed on egress; the F-111 gets out of the launch or target area fast. Fast over time; again because of fuel capacity. Here again the Super Hornet or F-35 won't have this kind of advantage.

Electronic defensive jamming. Here, the Super Hornet has all aspect defensive jamming. The F-35 if naked to an adverse stealth event, only has limited--and over-hyped--in-band jamming of its radar in the forward sector. The F-111 could be fitted with any defensive jamming gear one picks.

Defence is taking a big risk with the overly expensive, troubled (and no longer affordable) JASSM cruise missile. They claim this will bring back long range strike. Yet they are currently fitting it to a fighter aircraft with the shortest range in its class; the legacy Hornet. Add that kind of drag on to the little Hornet and you are now yanking down range even more. The Super Hornet (SUU-79 pylons pointed outward 4 degrees) and F-35 won't improve this ability much. Here again the F-111 is capable of carrying a wide variety of stand-off weapons over a much longer distance. JDAM-ER, JSOW, JASSM, Harpoon and SLAM-ER to name a few. Of interest, early evaluations of the small diameter bomb (SDB) involved clearance studies from the F-111's bomb bay. Clearing a wide variety of weapons for the F-111 brings a very good return on investment.

Air refueling resources are a factor in survivability. But the RAAF has invested in new air refueling tankers, doesn't this make things better? It depends. Defence leadership lies to the elected officials by stating that with refueling the Super Hornet and F-35 (and even the classic Hornet with JASSM) will still give Australia long range strike ability. What they don't state is that the F-111 has around a 1000 mile radius with no tanking. Add tanking to the F-111 scenario and you have a much greater reach with less tanker resources. Also because of the F-111's long legs, a force of F-111s can approach the target area (or release location for stand-off weapons) from any direction; North, South; East; West. Note; an amusing side note to this discussion is the idea that this loss of long range strike ability can be replaced by submarines and ships with cruise missiles. The answer to this silly argument is speed and response time and repeat sortie rate. How many cruise missiles can an aircraft type put on target in a few days time compared to a ship which is most likely no where near where it needs to be including no reloads.


2. America got rid of the F-111 years ago; therefore this is part of a justification for Australia to get rid of the F-111.

Weak. The U.S. got rid of the F-111 in a time when it was turning the B-1 bomber from the nuclear mission to the conventional-only mission. The U.S. didn't loose long range strike ability. Premature removal of the F-111 from Australian service removes long range strike ability from the RAAF.

3. The F-111 is too hard to maintain--along with the bonus lie of airframe fatigue.

Show me someone that states that the F-111 is too costly to maintain or do engineering risk-management and I will show you a lazy person. On this topic, senior defence leadership is both physically and mentally lazy.

The theory that the F-111 was at risk to wings breaking was an outright deception by senior defence leadership. The fact is, there are enough resources and material to keep the aircraft flying well into the 2020s. The articles in the news about the aircraft being a chemical risk to maintenance workers--for example the fuel system refurb debacle--shows again a defence senior leadership that is lazy and incompetent. All aircraft have maintenance hazards. Bad risk-management of these hazards compared to best-practices is again a result of poor leadership.

The idea that the F-111 was too expensive to operate per flying hour was over-blown. If you can't maintain this aircraft for 38 man-hours per flying hour (or less), you have serious weakness in maintenance management and leadership skills. The response to this is that aircraft like the Super Hornet the F-35 are cheaper per flying hour. For the Super Hornet this is true. For the F-35 this is unproven and the bold untruths in the marketing campaign (cheaper to operate than an F-16) speak for the moral character of the vendor and also government employees that cheer these lies forward. Since the two favoured aircraft can't strike as far as an F-111 and use way more tanker resources, comparing per flight hour operating costs as a justification for F-111 retirement is at best dishonest. Also, defence leadership claiming poor readiness rates of the aircraft doesn't bring up the fact that when the U.S. retired one of their F-111 squadrons that had a glass-cockpit upgrade, 90 percent readiness rates were achieved.

With the retirement of the F-111, the Australian taxpayer has been robbed of value. That value is deterrence. No amount of disinformation by senior defence leadership can change this.

[Skyway]

[soultrain]

Stealth fighters cheap at $140m


* Ian McPhedran
* From: Herald Sun
* August 25, 2010 12:00AM

F35 jets

The F35 Joint Strike Fighters are fifth-generation jets.

AUSTRALIA will pay a "fly away" price of less than $60 million each for up to 100 of the world's most advanced stealth fighter jets.

But the total will be more than double that for a package that includes weapons, sensors, training and lifetime support for the F35 Joint Strike Fighter.

At $140 million, the single-seat jets will be cheaper than the 24 two-seat Super Hornets bought by the Howard government for $6.6 billion or more than $220 million each.

The multi-role jet is powered by the biggest fighter engine ever built, which propels it at almost twice the speed of sound and it is virtually invisible to radar.

In addition to stealth, the aircraft is completely fly-by-wire with electric controls, fully networked with pilot voice recognition and a helmet mounted display offering "see through" features that enable the pilot to even look down through the jet.

Australia is buying up to 100 jets from the US Air Force under a so-called foreign military sales deal.

For the first time the aircraft maker, Lockheed Martin, has provided a "firm" price to Australian taxpayers in 2010 dollars.

During a briefing at Lockheed Martin's huge state-of-the-art JSF factory at Fort Worth in Texas, project chief Tom Burbage revealed that Australia, as one of nine global partners, would pay less for its planes than Israel, which has ordered 20 of the fifth-generation fighters.

"Your average cost of buying your fleet of aeroplanes will be at that number ($60m) or maybe slightly below it," Mr Burbage said.

Israel last week said it was buying 20 JSFs for a total outlay of $2.75 billion or about $140 million each based on an initial fly-away cost of $92 million, the same figure as early Australian aircraft.

Mr Burbage also revealed that the hourly flying cost of the JSF would be about 20 per cent below the RAAF's fleet of F/A-18 Hornet fighters.

"That has been fairly stable for the past two or three years," he said.

The first two RAAF jets will be delivered in 2014 when pilots will train on them at Eglin air force base in Florida.

The initial operational squadron of 14 planes is due in service by 2018.

Mr Burbage said the biggest challenge for the program was managing the global supply chain for aircraft components.

Up to 70 per cent of costs come from the supply chain that includes manufacturing centres in many countries, including $120 million for 180 projects in Australia so far.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nation ... 5909569574

[Penguin]

Saturday, July 24, 2010
Senior Australian Defence leadership deception on the F-111 retirement

Dumbing down Australian Defence senior leadership comes at a cost. The result is that you have an organisation which, most of the time, can only react to PowerPoint slides from sales briefings.

This dumbing down has resulted in a complete removal of Australia's long range strike capability.

Lets look at some of the misinformation pushed by defence over the F-111 retirement.

1. It isn't survivable for future threats in the region.

This is an incredible claim when you consider the following.

Based on the very limited statements that defence makes on this topic; the Super Hornet and F-35 won't be survivable for future threats. Defence claims that the F-111 would have to be escorted for strike missions. This depends. If an air campaign requires destroying enemy fighter aircraft this requires an air superiority fighter and stand-off weapons. Neither the Super Hornet or F-35 can qualify in this regard. Against advanced fighters being fielded into the Pacific Rim over the coming years, only aircraft like the F-22 qualify for this job. This aircraft has the ability to pick a fight on its own terms because it has the speed (with the fuel economy of super-cruise) to setup an attack or re-setup as needed. The F-22s sub-sonic super-maneuver capability carries over to Mach speed with quick Mach turns for the re-setup and to reduced the no-escape zone (NEZ) of enemy missiles. The F-35 depends on narrow-band export-friendly stealth technology and the Super Hornet will just be run down or bingo-fueled to a certain death. The only air superiority that Australian Defence leadership is buying into is that of the enemy.

"Survivability" of the F-111 is something like this. It has growth room for numerous kinds of defensive avionics and modern weapons. For instance; defence cheerleaders of group-think state that the new aircraft that RAAF will be getting are networked. Big deal. The B-52 (older than the F-111) is networked with various technologies. There is enough space and power output to put any kind of network gear into the F-111 that you want for pennys on the dollar of gold-plated solutions. So on this topic, yet again, senior defence leadership is misleading our elected officials.

Next, the F-111 can go down below the enemies ground based radar horizon when needed. It was designed for low level penetration. This kind of move burns fuel at a higher rate. Fuel that the Super-Hornet or F-35 won't have.

Speed on egress; the F-111 gets out of the launch or target area fast. Fast over time; again because of fuel capacity. Here again the Super Hornet or F-35 won't have this kind of advantage.

Electronic defensive jamming. Here, the Super Hornet has all aspect defensive jamming. The F-35 if naked to an adverse stealth event, only has limited--and over-hyped--in-band jamming of its radar in the forward sector. The F-111 could be fitted with any defensive jamming gear one picks.

Defence is taking a big risk with the overly expensive, troubled (and no longer affordable) JASSM cruise missile. They claim this will bring back long range strike. Yet they are currently fitting it to a fighter aircraft with the shortest range in its class; the legacy Hornet. Add that kind of drag on to the little Hornet and you are now yanking down range even more. The Super Hornet (SUU-79 pylons pointed outward 4 degrees) and F-35 won't improve this ability much. Here again the F-111 is capable of carrying a wide variety of stand-off weapons over a much longer distance. JDAM-ER, JSOW, JASSM, Harpoon and SLAM-ER to name a few. Of interest, early evaluations of the small diameter bomb (SDB) involved clearance studies from the F-111's bomb bay. Clearing a wide variety of weapons for the F-111 brings a very good return on investment.

Air refueling resources are a factor in survivability. But the RAAF has invested in new air refueling tankers, doesn't this make things better? It depends. Defence leadership lies to the elected officials by stating that with refueling the Super Hornet and F-35 (and even the classic Hornet with JASSM) will still give Australia long range strike ability. What they don't state is that the F-111 has around a 1000 mile radius with no tanking. Add tanking to the F-111 scenario and you have a much greater reach with less tanker resources. Also because of the F-111's long legs, a force of F-111s can approach the target area (or release location for stand-off weapons) from any direction; North, South; East; West. Note; an amusing side note to this discussion is the idea that this loss of long range strike ability can be replaced by submarines and ships with cruise missiles. The answer to this silly argument is speed and response time and repeat sortie rate. How many cruise missiles can an aircraft type put on target in a few days time compared to a ship which is most likely no where near where it needs to be including no reloads.


2. America got rid of the F-111 years ago; therefore this is part of a justification for Australia to get rid of the F-111.

Weak. The U.S. got rid of the F-111 in a time when it was turning the B-1 bomber from the nuclear mission to the conventional-only mission. The U.S. didn't loose long range strike ability. Premature removal of the F-111 from Australian service removes long range strike ability from the RAAF.

3. The F-111 is too hard to maintain--along with the bonus lie of airframe fatigue.

Show me someone that states that the F-111 is too costly to maintain or do engineering risk-management and I will show you a lazy person. On this topic, senior defence leadership is both physically and mentally lazy.

The theory that the F-111 was at risk to wings breaking was an outright deception by senior defence leadership. The fact is, there are enough resources and material to keep the aircraft flying well into the 2020s. The articles in the news about the aircraft being a chemical risk to maintenance workers--for example the fuel system refurb debacle--shows again a defence senior leadership that is lazy and incompetent. All aircraft have maintenance hazards. Bad risk-management of these hazards compared to best-practices is again a result of poor leadership.

The idea that the F-111 was too expensive to operate per flying hour was over-blown. If you can't maintain this aircraft for 38 man-hours per flying hour (or less), you have serious weakness in maintenance management and leadership skills. The response to this is that aircraft like the Super Hornet the F-35 are cheaper per flying hour. For the Super Hornet this is true. For the F-35 this is unproven and the bold untruths in the marketing campaign (cheaper to operate than an F-16) speak for the moral character of the vendor and also government employees that cheer these lies forward. Since the two favoured aircraft can't strike as far as an F-111 and use way more tanker resources, comparing per flight hour operating costs as a justification for F-111 retirement is at best dishonest. Also, defence leadership claiming poor readiness rates of the aircraft doesn't bring up the fact that when the U.S. retired one of their F-111 squadrons that had a glass-cockpit upgrade, 90 percent readiness rates were achieved.

With the retirement of the F-111, the Australian taxpayer has been robbed of value. That value is deterrence. No amount of disinformation by senior defence leadership can change this.

Fonte: http://dodwatch.blogspot.com/2010/07/se ... rship.html
Posted by Eric Palmer at 5:42 PM

"Who is Eric L. Palmer?
"That question was the subject of a recent F-16.net discussion, and for good reason. The former US Air Force photographer now working in Australia has become a prolific blogger on defense technology issues, and a leading blogosphere critic of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

[PRick]

Só faltava essa, fotográfo agora virou especialista e porta-voz da LockMartin.

[]´s

[soultrain]

Epá que distorção!!!! Foi o Eric que escreveu o texto, mas deu voz às suas fontes "Senior Australian Defence leadership". Em lado nenhum ele diz ser o que quer que seja. É o mesmo que o DB fazer um artigo sobre a FAB e alguém num fórum Australiano por em causa o artigo, pelo que ele foi...

Sem noção...

[soultrain]

Friday, July 16, 2010
What you didn't hear about the Canadian F-35 fighter replacement announcement

The picture of bravery: Minister of Industry Tony Clement. Here at the announcement he is actually under duress (kind of like those POW photos you see where the guy holds out his middle finger. He is trying to tell us about the cost prospects of the F-35 to the Canadian taxpayer.

The current Canadian leadership has announced their decision to go with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

This is not a contract. Under the current plan, Canada does not have to do this kind of hard commitment until 2014. Under the old plans of the F-35 timelines that have continuously slipped in schedule since the start of the program, this seems like a long way off. Fast-forward to today and if the 2014 date is to be taken seriously, this will be before all of the initial flight testing is done on the aircraft. More important about this 2014 date is that it will be two years before the United States Air Force (USAF) declares initial operating capability (IOC).

A look at IOCs shows that it takes a few years for real military personnel that make up a fighter squadron (and associated maintenance and sustainment) to make the aircraft work anywhere close to the blue-sky marketing claims in PowerPoint slides of the aircraft vendor--and cheerleaders--practised in the art of separating the taxpayer from their money. So don't expect full operating capability with the aircraft type in the USAF--the same variant of the F-35 Canada has picked--until 2020 at the earliest.

As a wild comparison of IOC vs FOC, lets look at the United States Marine Corps (USMC) short-take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) variant known as the F-35B (also the most expensive and complex variant) schedule. The Marines want to declare IOC in 2012 well before the flight test envelope is fully cleared and well before the operational flight test schedule is done. The Marines don't expect to declare FOC with their F-35s until 2024. This would have to be some kind of world record for distance between IOC and FOC for fighter aircraft. A look at their can-do attitude with weapons program can be seen by pointing your Google machine at the V-22 Osprey or the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV). Gold plated and faulty are the results so far.

In 2014, Canada won't have any solid information to justify a real honest-to-god contract that throws down billions of dollars on this flying question mark.

The outrageous insults to the taxpayer on this fraud by trick or device come from the vendor of the aircraft and the government. For Canada it is one and the same because deep down, the Canadian government is afraid of making their own decisions on most big dollar military purchases because they get browbeat by every kind of alphabet soup of U.S. government department and U.S. industry official promising big wins if Ottawa spins the roulette wheel. They were shown a PowerPoint briefing with no hard facts to back it up and this is their idea of "rigorous analysis"

Defence Minister MacKay (no stranger to PowerPoint briefs backed up by questionable rigorous analysis) has an interesting opinion on the single-engine fighter debate when attempting to justify the single-engine F-35. A short history: years ago, in the 1980's when Canada was looking for a new fighter, they wanted it to have two-engines for reliability over the vast and cold northern lands. Canada was also bitten hard by the Lockheed designed single engined CF-104 experience. The fighter procurement in the 1980's gave Canada the two-engine CF-18 fighter. Friday, MacKay stated that, the fighter jets "will match and outperform any dual engine aircraft." This misleading statement runs into trouble when you look at aircraft threats which will face the F-35 during its alleged service life. And it doesn't address the answer of what happens when the engine quits.

It seems that Canada is short of anything you can call a military analyst. However Mercedes Stephenson makes more sense than the government even if she isn't all that bright on things that fly and smell of kerosene.

My impeccable investigative reporting skills have discovered she has a serious agenda. She wants the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter to be the single-source selection. The reason, can be seen in this quote from her bio, "in her spare time Mercedes works to raise public awareness of the plight of orphaned and abandoned grizzly bear cubs and to assist in the placement of the cubs in rehabilitation centres and wildlife sanctuaries." She wants to keep her grizzly bears well fed when the single-engine jet quits over the far north frozen tundra. You read it here first.

Now on to procurement cost. Quoting the Vancouver Sun, Defence Minister MacKay goes on further stating the reason for the aircraft acquisition cost of $140 million each is the planes are outfitted with on board equipment, including sensors and weapons systems, which account for the cost. Isn't this true for every fighter aircraft acquisition?

Now that the acquisition is covered, how about the price to maintain and sustain the aircraft? Here, the government has absolutely no clue unless you consider blue-sky marketing as hard analysis. Partner nations were told that the aircraft would cost the same or less to maintain than an F-16. So why is there ANY question of this today? Here again, the taxpayer suffers for this lie because the government can't do any homework. What we have is this from the Canadian Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women Rona Ambrose. Note when you need opinions on cost of a fighter aircraft in Canada, call up the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women. Ambrose said that long term maintenance contracts "would be negotiated at a later date". She goes on to say, "When the aircraft comes off the production line, we expect to negotiate the in-service support costs and, importantly, all of our aerospace companies will also have an opportunity to access and compete for those in-service support costs." An important distinction on all of this. It is fair to not know the total cost of ownership of a new aircraft. It is not fair to be told time and again by a con artist that it will be the same acquisition price as an F-16 and it will cost the same or less than an F-16 to operate when there is no supporting facts. It will be interesting to see what kind of negotiation one can do when they are fully committed to the vendor; the fox telling the farmer, the definition of a chicken.

Canadian industry is brought on as a big thing with the F-35. All Joint Strike Fighter Partner nations were briefed on the "potential" of big home industry workshare. The word "potential" is the most important word in all of this. For years this "potential" was briefed as being around $6B with the potential thrown around (if the program did really good) for $9B. All of these dollar figures being extremely fuzzy across different exchange rates at different times.

What is next is troubling and could require some serious answers when Canadian Parliament gets together again. Lockheed Martin may have to issue some kind of clarification to really lawyer proof a comment that hit the NY Times on Thursday. Here is the full quote.

"Ms. Testa said that Lockheed would buy about $10 billion of components and parts from Canadian aerospace companies as part of the deal. That is in line with Canada’s usual demand that foreign companies spend about $2 in Canada for every dollar they receive through government contracts."


Two things. OK maybe more but let's start with two. "About $10 billion" in any language means pretty close to $10 billion. No where in that statement is the word "potential". This is right out of the Ponzi Scheme playbook used by con artists like Ponzi himself and Bernard Madoff. OK, three things, that last part about two dollars for every one dollar statement sounds less like "best-value competition"--the supposed cornerstone of industry participation in the F-35 program--and more like offsets. Lockheed Martin spent a lot of time over the years briefing F-35 Joint Strike Fighter partner nations how evil offsets were and that there would be none of it. But yeah, the comments of Ms. Testa sure look like offsets. It looks like we will have to go on an offset hunt to see what other contracts with Canada Lockheed Martin (or the handyman for LM, the U.S. Government) intends to pad to make up the difference for this scheme with the F-35.

There are some more interesting words from the people performing this sting on the taxpayer. Here is the full statement from Canadian Public Works Minister Ambrose when I referred to support costs above, (again from the Vancouver Sun), "Ambrose said the government was pressed for time to acquire the single-engine jets, and long-term maintenance contracts would be negotiated at a later date."

"Pressed for time". Let that one sink in. It is all well and good that industry wants to take part in supporting the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program. But why should the taxpayer be "pressed for time" for the government to commit to a fighter replacement on an aircraft that is no where a known quantity in affordability or capability?

There is more from the Vancouver Sun on this; "The government's decision to buy the aircraft means Canada can compete for contracts worth billions of dollars for the "global supply chain" of some 3,000 F-35 Lightning II jets, said Ambrose."

Can't industry compete for contracts supposedly worth billions of dollars by themselves? The bold statement being hinted, if the Canadian government didn't make this announcement now, they would not be able to compete for contracts (even though taxpayers are already committed to millions just for Joint Strike Fighter partner nation membership.) All of this is interesting because why should Canada compete for contracts if the Lockheed Martin spokesperson quoted in the NY Times article stated that the deal would buy about $10 billion of components and parts from Canadian aerospace industry?

Ambrose presents a huge gaffe with this statement from the government. "A lengthy and intense competition was completed in 2001 for who would build the F-35,Canadian companies and the Canadian government helped develop the F-35, and now we are exercising our option under the Joint Strike Fighter memorandum of understanding to acquire it."

For the Canadian government, they are willing to hand over their whole decision on what will be the next fighter in Canada to the U.S. who conducted a competition to see who would build the Joint Strike Fighter. This is the Canadian governments non-sequitur response when the question of a competition for the fighter replacement comes up today. The short anwser is that Canada did not hold a competitive and open process between existing fighter designs. They knuckled under from the pressure of the U.S. government and industry.

Topping off the Ambrose performance is where she pushes the lie that there will be 3000 some F-35s. She in no way can prove this to the public nor can anyone else. It is a wild deception to con the gullible in to thinking that it is a fact when it cannot be; given the growing cost and schedule troubles faced by the program.

Notice that we haven't really covered the lethality of the aircraft. Or, the lack of it. Right now it is all politics, and industry graft. There is little engagement going on that what Canada is wanting to buy into will be an obsolete weapons system. A better label for this sham would be; "defect by design". Not just the jet itself but the whole business case for the F-35. But yes, believe the wisdom out of the mouth of a Canadian minister that saw the PowerPoint brief.

Canada is taking defence advice from a country that is wildly in debt. So in debt that it is a threat to the ability of America's power projection ability for the foreseeable future. Or do you really believe the "business analysts" and others that tell us there will be a full recovery by date X? I guess you can't base an economy on flipping houses. Who knew? No one knows. And with that is the fact that the U.S. military was supposed to be the largest buyer of the F-35. With huge defense cuts coming in the U.S., and faulty management with the F-35 program, the question won't be, will we see 3000 F-35s? The question will be, will we see 300?

The really gullible can believe a supposed aerospace "analyst" Richard Aboulafia; a guy that is about as accurate on air power issues as a blindfolded kid trying to hit a pinata at a birthday party. He has this to say about the Canadian announcement.

"This is the first commitment to a full production batch by any of the member countries and that is very notable and it's a strong endorsement because the [Canadian air force] is small but prestigious," analyst Richard Aboulafia said in an interview.

He described the Joint Strike Force program as a game-changer that is estimated to capture more than half of world fighter production by 2019.

Aboulafia said the order is good news for Canadian companies because of the strong local content that "basically guarantees a high level of production work."


With the attempts by DC politicians and even some of the voting public to make the U.S. a European welfare state model--along with huge chops in defense capability and size--Aboulafia's theory of what makes up the world fighter market (not counting China or India) is if anything faith-based thinking. Add to this the issues of todays defense engineering malaise where daddy can't program manage, and you can see that the F-35 program has the potential to be the military industry equal of the global financial crisis.


While there is a lot of criticism of the Canadian Liberal party as it pertains to defence (a lot of it justified) we have this (again from the Vancouver Sun), "Liberal defence critic Ujjal Dosanjh said the investment into the program under the Liberals was one of research and manufacturing. "There is absolutely no rush to move on this, as someone said, in the dead of summer, with absolutely zero accountability," said Dosanjh."

This is absolutely correct. Canada signed up to participate in the JSF program. It did not sign up as a sign of commitment to order the aircraft.

How Canada, the Canadian defence establishment and Canadian industry will weather all of this is yet to be seen. I wonder how much courage will be displayed in Parliament on this issue after the holiday?
Posted by Eric Palmer at 9:51 PM

[Penguin]

Com um custo desses, o F-35 terá um campo fértil na Europa...

Alemães estão surpresos com o custo operacional do Eurofighter
30 de agosto de 2010,
http://www.aereo.jor.br/2010/08/30/alem ... rofighter/


Os custos operacionais do Eurofighter são significativamente maiores do que o esperado, com o preço de € 73.992 por hora de voo, quase o dobro do inicialmente previsto.

O Tornado, avião mais caro da Luftwaffe, custa € 43.000 por hora. Muito mais caros do que se pensava, também são os voos da Força Aérea, feitos para a indústria alemã. Em fevereiro de 2009, três Eurofighter participaram do show Aero Índia 2009, pois a Índia planeja comprar 126 novos aviões de combate e o Eurofighter está na competição.

O vôo promocional durou 96 horas e custou € 7,1 milhões. A Luftwaffe pediu € 180.000 e o restante foi pago pelo contribuinte. A viagem fazia parte do programa de vôo normal, por isso a Força Aérea justificou o custo.

Este ano, o Eurofighter está sendo testado na Índia. A aeronave é da Luftwaffe novamente.

FONTE: Spielgel Online

[Penguin]

Epá que distorção!!!! Foi o Eric que escreveu o texto, mas deu voz às suas fontes "Senior Australian Defence leadership". Em lado nenhum ele diz ser o que quer que seja. É o mesmo que o DB fazer um artigo sobre a FAB e alguém num fórum Australiano por em causa o artigo, pelo que ele foi...

Sem noção...

As poucas coisas atribuídas ao MoD australiano no texto ele refuta com o saber de um fotografo. Um expert da blogsfera!
Um fotografo saudosista. O F-111 dava lindas fotos.



[]s

[caixeiro]

Só faltava essa, fotográfo agora virou especialista e porta-voz da LockMartin.

[]´s

Leio sempre o Blog dele desto o antigo que nao existe mais, o que ele nao e porta-voz da LM, muito pelo contrario
ele e daqueles que tem a paxorra de le tudo do DOD e press releases sobre o F-35, se tem numero ele le e esponhe, e muita
coisa ele esta certo, ele ve o lado do contribuinte, quanto essa viagem da USAF vai custar na verdade, o blog e legal bom de seguir.


Abracos Elcio Caixeiro

PS: o F-111 nao era o aviao que ia substituir varios outros da USAF e que hoje existem o F-18, B-1B e A-10 para fazerem o que ele ira fazer sozinho ?
Aparece que cada que arrumaram outro que tem a mesma missao, essa USAF e persistente uma hora ela consegue...

[Alitson]

F-111 substituir o F-18, B-1B e A-10? Como? O F-111 é de 1964, o B-1B é de 1974, o A-10 é de 1972 e o F/A-18 é de 1978, portanto...

[LeandroGCard]

F-111 substituir o F-18, B-1B e A-10? Como? O F-111 é de 1964, o B-1B é de 1974, o A-10 é de 1972 e o F/A-18 é de 1978, portanto...

O que ele quis dizer é que a idéia original seria que o F-111 cumpriria todas as missões que estes aviões vieram a cumprir, e que se isto tivesse dado certo eles não precisariam sequer ter sido desenvolvidos.

Mas o foram, portanto... .


Leandro G. Card

[caixeiro]

F-111 substituir o F-18, B-1B e A-10? Como? O F-111 é de 1964, o B-1B é de 1974, o A-10 é de 1972 e o F/A-18 é de 1978, portanto...

E exatamento o ponto se o F-111 TIVESSE DADO CERTO, hoje nao teriamos A-10, F-18, nem B1-B, pq ele foi consebido na ideia de ser tudo
num so, com o tempo mostrou nao era bem assim, hoje temos o contrario, o F-35 que ira matar todos esses ai, mais o negocio ja nao e bem assim pq o A-10
ja tiraram da lista.

Abracos Elcio Caixeiro

[Penguin]

Israel vai fabricar as asas de cerca de 800 F-35
31 de agosto de 2010, em Noticiário Internacional, Sistemas de Armas, Tecnologia, por Alexandre Galante
http://www.aereo.jor.br/2010/08/31/isra ... -800-f-35/