F-35 News

[P44]

mais problemas


Dutch Labour drops support for Joint Strike Fighter jet

Thursday 20 May 2010

The Labour party (PvdA) has dropped its support for the Joint Strike Fighter jet project and will not support Dutch involvement in the test phase of the project, MP Angelien Eijsink said during a parliamentary debate on the JSF on Thursday.

Labour supported the purchase of one test jet while part of the coalition last year but says delays, uncertainty over the price and the noise factor make it irresponsible to continue, news agency ANP reports. Dropping out of the trials will still cost the taxpayer €20m, defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop said, adding that this figure could alter.

Delay
Last year's cabinet disagreement over the JSF led to the decision to buy one test plane and take a decision on a second after the next election. Labour's support is crucial to the project - without it there is no parliamentary majority in favour. The JSF is supposed to replace the aging fleet of F16s.

© DutchNews.nl
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2 ... _joint.php

[P44]

Dutch Parliament Votes to Cancel First JSF Aircraft


(Source: defense-aerospace.com; issued May-21, 2010)


(By Dutch JSF analyst Johan Boeder; edited by defense-aerospace.com)



THE HAGUE, Netherlands --- The Dutch Parliament’s Lower House voted yesterday to cancel the order for the first F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft, and to stop Dutch participation in the program’s Initial Operational Test and Evaluation phase.

It also voted to direct the defense ministry to begin anew the Request for Proposal and the complete evaluation of the F-16 replacement program, for which a final decision is due in 2012.

The basis for yesterday’s vote is that the price estimates provided by Lockheed Martin in response to the original Request for Information of 2002, and the Supplemental Request for Information of 2008, are unreliable, as confirmed by the late 2009 reports of the US Joint Estimate Team and US Government Accountability Office.

The motion was proposed by the Labour Party, and was supported by the Socialist Party (SP), Green Left, the right-wing PVV (Freedom Party of Geert Wilders), the Liberal Democrats D66 and the Party for the Animals. The resolution passed with a majority of 79 votes to 71 votes.

If implemented, Parliament’s decision means that The Netherlands would cancel acquisition of the first F-35A aircraft from the Low-Rate Initial Production (LRIP) 3 batch, ordered in May 2009 with a special clause calling for its cost to be paid back if Parliament voted against funding a second aircraft in 2010. Also, there will be no contract for a second F-35A aircraft from the LRIP 4; the pre-payment for related long-lead items has to paid back, and the participation in the Initial Operational Test and Evaluation (MOU signed in May 2008) will be ended. It does not, however, mean that the Netherlands will necessarily pull out of the program, although that is the outcome favored by the Labour Party.

However, the vote was dismissed by Minister of Defence Eimert van Middelkoop as Labour Party “election rhetoric” in the run-up to the June 9 general election. The Netherlands are governed by a caretaker government since the Cabinet lost a confidence vote in February on whether to continue the controversial military deployment in Afghanistan.

“The issue will be discussed in Cabinet, possibly today,” MoD spokesman Otte Beeksma told defense-aerospace.com. But he said that, in a May 20 statement, van Middlekoop said he was neither willing nor able to act on Parliament’s vote as in his opinion the government’s caretaker status means it cannot take any irreversible decision before the election. He added that any decision will be taken by the new government, noting that there will also be a new Parliament that might take a different position.

However Labour MP Angelien Eijsink said that it would be irresponsible to continue with the JSF program given information that has been available for months about delays, the Nunn-McCurdy cost breach, the delay of the IOT&E by 2 years until 2015, and poor progress in flight testing. She mentioned that the Parliament was still waiting for the promised, guaranteed price of the LRIP4 plane, while promised data about noise levels is still not available, and this is an important issue in a densely populated country like The Netherlands. Finally, the industrial business case for JSF participation has failed because of the lack of orders, of much lower than anticipated in 2002, and poor international contracts for the F-35 aircraft.

The Labour Party wants to continue Dutch participation in the F-35’s System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase, as signed in the 2002 Memorandum of Understanding on SDD. Other parties including SP, Green Left, D66 and PVV want to end the SDD participation.

In 2002, The Netherlands signed a MOU for a Level 2 participation in the SDD phase, and invested US$ 800 million in the project. Christian Democratic Party (CDA) and Liberal-conservatives (VVD) and the Christian Union (CU) were seriously irritated by the Labour Party’s position, and were prepared to wait until the missing information on prices and noise levels became available. (ends)



Labour Drops Support for Joint Strike Fighter Jet


(Source: Dutch News; issued May 20, 2010)



The Labour party (PvdA) has dropped its support for the Joint Strike Fighter jet project and will not support Dutch involvement in the test phase of the project, MP Angelien Eijsink said during a parliamentary debate on the JSF on Thursday.

Labour supported the purchase of one test jet while part of the coalition last year but says delays, uncertainty over the price and the noise factor make it irresponsible to continue, news agency ANP reports.

Dropping out of the trials will still cost the taxpayer EUR 20m, defence minister Eimert van Middelkoop said, adding that this figure could alter.

Last year's cabinet disagreement over the JSF led to the decision to buy one test plane and take a decision on a second after the next election.

Labour's support is crucial to the project - without it there is no parliamentary majority in favour.

The JSF is supposed to replace the aging fleet of F-16s.

-ends-

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articl ... phase.html

[Junker]

A epopeia da segunda turbina continua:

Why two jets are not better than one
By RYAN ALEXANDER | 5/26/10 5:09 AM EDT
Text Size


A Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter aircraft conducts a flyby. | Photo released by DoD



House lawmakers threw down a fighter jet gauntlet to President Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, daring them to wield the veto pen in backing up their challenge to wasteful defense spending.

When Gates released the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2011 budget request, he singled out as veto-bait the development of an alternate, or extra, engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s next-generation aircraft.

Competing manufacturers can yield big cost cuts. That’s the reason usually cited when the government has two different companies each design and build similar components. But it actually adds $3 billion to the F-35’s price.

No, it turns out the main reason lawmakers are thumbing their nose at the administration is because spending billions on a duplicative engine means jobs back home.

The JSF alternate engine is Exhibit A in the panorama of weapons systems that congressional lawmakers fund for parochial reasons over Pentagon protests.

General Electric and Rolls-Royce lost the engine competition to Pratt & Whitney years ago. But four lawmakers from Ohio, site of the GE plant, sponsored a $170 million earmark for the alternate engine in 2007. Indiana lawmakers, including Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh, supported this because Rolls-Royce brings hundreds of jobs to their state.

The House Armed Services Committee then added $485 million to the defense authorization bill, further testing the administration’s resolve.

Though neither the Bush nor the Obama administration ever backed the jet program, Congress, pressed by powerful lawmakers and corporate lobbying, added more than $2 billion over the years to spending bills for the second engine.

Last year, the House added $465 million for the alternate engine to the fiscal year 2010 defense spending bill and attempted to pay for it by cutting two of the 30 planes that the White House requested.

The final bill dodged Obama’s veto threat by funding both the engine and the 30 planes.

Beltway insiders might shrug over these kinds of machinations, but the potential game-changer this year is the trillion-dollar deficit that threatens not only our economic security but also our national security.

Gates pointed out during a recent speech at the Dwight D. Eisenhower library in Kansas that the flood of dollars to the Defense Department after Sept. 11 exacerbated DoD’s difficulty with setting priorities,

“One of the members of Congress, I’m told, said, ‘Well, why is $3 billion for the alternative engine such a big deal when we’ve got a trillion-dollar deficit?’” Gates told reporters before his speech. “I would submit that’s one of the reasons we have a trillion-dollar deficit.”

Meanwhile, independent agencies, including the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Accountability Office, have found no evidence that building competing engines now translates into cost savings — as it did for some previous jet fighters.

Whatever money might be saved by continuing the engine competition into extra innings would most likely be swallowed up by the added expense of maintaining two separate production lines, supply chains and management teams.

There’s good reason why the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps all insist that they don’t want, don’t need and can’t afford the second engine — especially when the nation is fighting two wars with the economy in trouble.

Legislators may claim that they know better than these defense experts. But the conflicts of interest of the program’s biggest supporters are clear.

This fight is about more than an engine — or even a sea change in the economy. It’s about the need for a sea change in the way lawmakers spend defense dollars.


Ryan Alexander is president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal watchdog organization.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37754.html

[P44]

Lockheed F-35 Cost Now Projected at $382 Billion (excerpt)


(Source: Reuters; issued June 1, 2010)



WASHINGTON --- Lockheed Martin Corp. said a fourth batch of F-35 fighter planes will beat Pentagon cost estimates by more than 20 percent, even as new U.S. data pegged the overall program tab at $382 billion.

The U.S. Defense Department on Tuesday told Congress that the multinational fighter was vital to national security and it should not be terminated despite the sharp cost increases.

Senior officials at the Pentagon and at Lockheed acknowledged the new cost target was 65 percent higher than the $232 billion initially set for the program, but said they were working hard to drive down costs.

"I hope that the taxpayer never has to pay this bill. It should come down," one senior defense official told reporters at the Pentagon.

The official declined to give specific targets for how much lower the cost could wind up being, but said "every column of cost in this program" was being scrubbed for possible savings.

Lockheed and eight overseas countries are developing the F-35 fighter in three variants as an affordable replacement for current F-16, Harrier and A-10 warplanes flown by the U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines, and many foreign countries. (end of excerpt)


Click here for the full article, on the Reuters website.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idCNN011 ... 602?rpc=44


(EDITOR’S NOTE: In March, the Pentagon had already conceded that the total cost of the JSF program had risen to $323 billion. This latest estimate shows that total JSF costs have increased by $59 billion over the past six months alone.)

(ends)

[EDSON]

De onde sai tanto dinheiro para este projeto? Dos europeus é que não é.

[Penguin]

APG-81 AESA Radar for the F-35 JSF

[soultrain]

Com o dinheiro gasto no F-35 e no F-22, ficava mais barato comprar o país agressor, tipo: "Quanto custa o pedaço? A gente COBRE!"

[[]]'s

[chm0d]

Com o dinheiro gasto no F-35 e no F-22, ficava mais barato comprar o país agressor, tipo: "Quanto custa o pedaço? A gente COBRE!"

[[]]'s

UAHuAHUHAuHAuHAUH, pode crer!!!

[Penguin]

JSF Price Tag Now $112 Million Per Plane; Program $382 Billion


By Greg Grant Tuesday, June 1st, 2010 5:55 pm
Posted in Air, Policy

The price tag of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the military’s largest weapons program, has jumped once again and is now projected to cost $382 billion, 65 percent higher than the original estimate in 2002, according to the Pentagon’s own independent cost analysis group.

The per plane cost, including development and production, now sits at $112 million; nearly 85 percent higher than the original estimate of $62 million for an “inexpensive” replacement for the ageing F-16 fleet


Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2010/06/01/jsf-p ... z0poRpxtFz

[Carlos Lima]

F-35 Supersonico!

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/news/pres ... sonic.html

Lockheed Martin F-35 STOVL Variant Flies Supersonic
PATUXENT RIVER, Md., June 14th, 2010 -- The Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] F-35 Joint Strike Fighter short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) variant flew faster than the speed of sound for the first time June 10, achieving a significant milestone. The aircraft accelerated to Mach 1.07 (727 miles per hour) on the first in a long series of planned supersonic flights.

"For the first time in military aviation history, supersonic, radar-evading stealth comes with short takeoff/vertical landing capability," said Bob Price, Lockheed Martin's F-35 U.S. Marine Corps program manager. "The supersonic F-35B can deploy from small ships and austere bases near front-line combat zones, greatly enhancing combat air support with higher sortie-generation rates." The F-35B will enter service for the Marines, the United Kingdom's Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, and the Italian Air Force and Navy.

The supersonic milestone was achieved on the 30th flight of the F-35B known as BF-2. U.S. Marine Corps pilot Lt. Col. Matt Kelly climbed to 30,000 feet and accelerated to Mach 1.07 in the off-shore supersonic test track near Naval Air Station Patuxent River. Future testing will gradually expand the flight envelope out to the aircraft's top speed of Mach 1.6, which the F-35 is designed to achieve with a full internal weapons load of more than 3,000 pounds. All F-35s are designed to launch internal missiles at maximum supersonic speed, as well as launch internal guided bombs supersonically. During the flight, Kelly accomplished 21 unique test points, including several Integrated Test Blocks to validate roll, pitch, yaw and propulsion performance.

BF-2 is the third F-35 to achieve supersonic flight. Two F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variants also have broken the sound barrier.

The F-35 program has about 900 suppliers in 45 states, and directly and indirectly employs more than 127,000 people. Thousands more are employed in the F-35 partner countries, which have invested more than $4 billion in the project. Those countries are the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.

Three F-35 variants are under development – the F-35A CTOL variant to replace U.S. Air Force F-16s and A-10s, as well as aircraft employed by seven allied nations; the F-35B STOVL variant to replace U.S. Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers and F/A-18s, U.K. Royal Air Force and Royal Navy Harrier GR.7s, GR.9s and Sea Harriers, and Italian Harriers; and the F-35C carrier variant to replace U.S. Navy F/A-18s.

The F-35 Lightning II is a 5th generation fighter, combining advanced stealth with fighter speed and agility, fully fused sensor information, network-enabled operations, advanced sustainment, and lower operational and support costs. Lockheed Martin is developing the F-35 with its principal industrial partners, Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems. Two separate, interchangeable turbofan engines are under development: the Pratt & Whitney F135 and the GE Rolls-Royce Fighter Engine Team F136.

Headquartered in Bethesda, Md., Lockheed Martin is a global security company that employs about 136,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2009 sales of $45.2 billion.

[]s
CB_Lima

[marcelo l.]

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i= ... =AME&s=TOP

A administração de Obama pode ter de repensar se os militares E.U. terá 2.500 jatos de caça F-35 e precisa elaborar uma clara, a estratégia nacional de segurança priorizados, um conselheiro do Pentágono a repórteres top 29 de junho.

O mundo mudou muito desde quando o caça F-35 foi projetado, e potenciais inimigos americanos adquiriram sistemas que podem render outros tipos de E.U. aeronaves, sistemas de mísseis e outras plataformas mais útil em determinadas situações do que o multibilionário F-35, , disse Andrew Krepinevich, presidente do Centro com sede em Washington para Avaliação Estratégica e Orçamentária.

Com possíveis inimigos americanos, como a China, o desenvolvimento de sistemas e atendendo cada vez mais avançados - como suites sofisticado radar e mísseis terra-ar - Pentágono e funcionários da administração deve examinar se a Lockheed Martin-made Lightning II trará tanto valor " "para combater pelo tempo que vem na próxima década online como o pensamento décadas anteriores, quando foi concebido, ele disse.

Embora o programa tenha sido recentemente no centro das atenções devido ao crescimento significativas de custos e atrasos no cronograma, o Pentágono planeja comprar um total de 2457 dos três F-35 variantes. O secretário de Defesa, Robert Gates, e outros funcionários seniores DoD tem parte de seus legados amarrados a girar em torno do programa e um dia fielding uma frota desse tamanho.

Mas porque não pode ser tão útil a partir de bases avançadas chamado aérea ou por transportadoras de defesas adversários "ar avançado, o Departamento de Defesa pode ter que engolir em seco, comprar menos F-35s e usar todas as economias para comprar outros aviões e mísseis .

Tais alternativas, Krepinevich disse, poderia ser mais útil na luta contra tais defesas aéreas avançadas. Mas, acrescentou, "isso depende de como lidamos com esse problema."

Esta questão muito está sendo estudada como parte de duas em curso estudos internos do Pentágono: um sobre a postura adequada dos militares E.U. é global, e outro sobre como deve proceder a operações de ataque de longo alcance, disse Krepinevich, que é um membro proeminente da Política de Defesa Conselho de Administração. Esse painel fornece aconselhamento sobre uma série de questões-chave diretamente ao secretário da Defesa.

Krepinevich descreveu um mundo que está mudando rapidamente, impulsionado por uma série de tendências demográficas e tecnológicas.

Por um lado, os analistas CSBA "ver um monte de perturbar os jovens", que será tentado a participar de grupos como a Al-Qaida. Essa é uma tendência cada vez mais combustíveis, Krepinevich notar, porque "cada vez maior poder destrutivo" é acabar "nas mãos" de tais indivíduos e grupos.

Outra ameaça emergente é a proliferação de nucleares e armas guiadas com precisão, ele disse, acrescentando ataques cibernéticos ea crescente vulnerabilidade dos recursos espaciais E.U. também serão os principais motores de requisitos de segurança norte-americana.

Nesse cenário de ameaças, Krepinevich disse que a administração Obama precisa de uma melhor estratégia de segurança global. O governo não parece ter elaborado uma detalhada, o plano de segurança amplamente focada como o Washington utilizados para orientar suas ações durante a Guerra Fria.

A Casa Branca no início deste ano lançou a administração Obama a primeira Estratégia de Segurança Nacional. Mas que estudar atentamente analisado, Krepinevich disse, é sobretudo um "documento de relações públicas." Para o presidente CSBA, é "surpreendente" que o governo não montou uma versão mais detalhada do NSS.

Ele falou a repórteres durante uma entrevista em uma análise CSBA novo pedido do fiscal orçamental de 2011 de defesa. Que pinta um retrato de estudo pouco animadoras.

O estudo, compilado pelo orçamento CSBA guru Todd Harrison, descreve uma "onda crescente de necessidades de recapitalização dos equipamentos envelhecimento perto do final da vida útil, apesar do crescimento contínuo no financiamento da aquisição."

Ele observa também o orçamento do Pentágono de 2011 "faz pouco para controlar o aumento dos custos de pessoal tanto para DoD civis e militares." Harrison também foi encontrado "custos de saúde que continuam a crescer bem acima da taxa de inflação." Isso é impulsionado, em grande parte, pela adição "de novos benefícios e ampliado ea crescente disparidade entre o prémio anual de militares aposentados pagam para TRICARE (que não cresceu em 15 anos)", afirma o relatório.

A intenção do governo de reduzir o défice, ea contínua desaceleração econômica, colocará pressões externas sobre gastos de defesa.

Harrison vê uma série de escolhas difíceis para os funcionários do Pentágono. E muitos pit pessoas versus máquinas.

"O desafio central para o orçamento de defesa nos próximos anos, é encontrar o justo equilíbrio entre os custos de pessoal, tais como salários, pensões e cuidados de saúde, e os custos dos equipamentos relacionados, tais como novos sistemas de armas e em curso as operações militares , "de acordo com o relatório.

"Ele também pode ser visto como uma questão intergeracional escolha-a entre o financiamento e pagar os benefícios para os militares de hoje (e aposentados) ou o financiamento do equipamento e treinamento necessário para aqueles que irão lutar em guerras de amanhã", Harrison escreveu. "A realidade fiscal é que em um ambiente apartamento ou diminuição orçamental, o Departamento não será capaz de financiar os dois na mesma medida em que ele faz hoje."

[Penguin]

Ares
A Defense Technology Blog

Canada Commits To JSF
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 7/16/2010 2:50 AM CDT
Canada is expected to announce today that it will "commit" to buying 65 Lockheed Martin F-35A Joint Strike Fighters. Just to save the fans time and effort, here's how it will be presented: another world-class military has decided that the JSF is the world's best fighter, proving the critics wrong.

First, some facts: The commitment will not be a contract. Even under the most recent version of the production, sustainment and follow-on development (PFSD) memorandum of understanding, which pre-dates the slippage of the JSF development program announced in March, Canada is not expected to sign a contract for its first JSFs until 2014.

By that time, today's duel of JSF price projections will be long settled by reality. However, it's interesting to note that the New York Times - a newspaper whose overweening pride in its own journalism seems to get in its eyes like smoke - swallows LockMart's price estimates whole in its report of the Canada deal, basing its "$4 billion" estimate on the lowest Fort Worth projection of the unit recurring flyaway cost.

Canada's Liberal-led opposition - not in a strong political position today - is criticizing the expected announcement on the grounds that there has been no competition. The response from the office of defense minister Peter McKay is illuminating:

"Contrary to Liberal myths, this was a competitive process. Canada participated in an extensive and rigorous competitive process where two bidders developed and competed prototype aircraft."

It might be worth asking the minister to explain how much of a vote Canada had in the outcome of the JSF competition a decade ago.

This is mainly a setback for Boeing, which of all competitors probably considered that it had the best chance in Canada. Unless Boeing can sell more Super Hornets to the US Navy or elsewhere, production will be running down by the time Canada revisits this decision.

[P44]

que pena essas bandeirinhas todas e esses numeros entre parentesis serem mais ficção que realidade

[justo]

Para matar a sua curiosidade sobre alto custo deste projeto...Aí está o motivo:

http://www.gizmodo.com.br/conteudo/e-as ... com-lasers


Abraços,
Justo.

[tflash]

e depois vem a chuva e anula essa tecnologia toda...

Com isto tudo, vai ser difícil ver um F35 com a pintura de tigre .