F-35 news roundup

[TaiidanTomcat]

Some stuff from the test community. Its context is important, and it helps set the background for testing and then speaks about the F-35C specifically.

[11bee]

Pratt seems to be making some progress on the engine issue.

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/pampw-to-test-remedy-for-f135-engine-fault-403721/

It's interesting that they directly contradicted Bogdan's earlier comments that a moderate maneuver caused the initial damage. Pratt is saying that the damaged occurred during a "relatively aggressive" maneuver.

I wonder if this is the opening salvo of litigation to get the AF to pay for the engine modifications instead of the costs being on Pratt's dime? I'm guessing that the good General was not pleased when he read this.

[Jennings]

Or not...

Pratt & Whitney, Others Hid New F-35 Engine Problems since May

By Giovanni de Briganti

Defense-Aerospace.com

Sept. 1, 2014

PARIS — Pratt & Whitney waited three months to publicly admit it had suspended deliveries of the engine that powers the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and only went public on Aug. 30, the day after Bloomberg News broke the story.

Pratt & Whitney also waited until Aug. 29 to file suit against the supplier it accuses of having supplied sub-standard materials, which it says it detected in late May. Pratt & Whitney’s statement also says it “is conducting a rigorous analysis of the material in question”, so it is not clear on what grounds it states “we are no longer accepting parts made from material provided by this company”.

Whatever the details, it is stunning to think that this delivery freeze has been kept secret for over three months, given this engine’s long history of problems and the entire F-35 program’s troubled history of under-performance, cost over-runs, and long delays.

Furthermore, it is of huge concern that it was covered up by government agencies named in Pratt & Whitney’s statement: Defense Criminal Investigation Services, U.S. Air Force Office of Special Investigations, and the U.S. Attorney's Office — and the agencies they report to.

In an Aug 29 story, Defense News quoted U.S. Air Force chief of staff, Lt Gen Walsh, as saying that Pratt & Whitney was working on a fix to whatever malfunction had caused the June 23 fire, but apparently forgot to mention Pratt & Whitney’s suspension of engine deliveries.

Nor was the problem mentioned by Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan, head of the Joint Program Office that runs the F-35 effort, or other government and industry officials who extensively briefed the media at the July 4 christening ceremony, at the RIAT air show, and at the Farnborough air show.

Bogdan’s silence on this issue is likely to cost him whatever credibility he had gained by publicly criticizing the performance of Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney when he took over the program.

The fact that the story finally leaked over the Labor Day holiday adds insult to injury.

This is one of the major holiday weekends in the U.S., when public attention is at ebb — so leaking the story at that time clearly implies that maintaining secrecy was a concerted effort by the government agencies and industry involved to minimize public reaction.

And, of course, the reasons for the June 23 fire have still not been made public even though, as mentioned above, Pratt & Whitney is working on a fix.

So the story now is as much about a cover-up as it is about management and supply chain lapses and failures at the two firms making the F-35 fighter and its engine.

Why cover up?

More water on a drowning duck.

Avoiding more bad news over the summer was crucial to the program, as the F-35 was due to make its international début in July. Two F-34Bs were scheduled to appear at the christening of a Royal Navy aircraft carrier on July 4 in Scotland and at two English air shows, where the British government was due to sign an order for 14 more aircraft.

All of the above paints a pretty dismal picture of the credibility of the F-35 program and of the ease with which it manipulates the media. But the media is not alone is having been misled:

• Witnesses during June-July hearings by four Congressional panels on the FY2015 budget also neglected to mention the engine delivery freeze. The cover-up is a slap in the face of these panels, whose reaction this week will be indicative of how seriously they take their oversight role.

• Was the British government, the biggest foreign partner in the F-35 program, informed of this latest setback, and did it join the cover-up? Was this the reason it didn’t sign the 14-aircraft order, as expected?

• Was the Italian government, the second-largest foreign partner, informed and were the six other foreign partners who have contributed to funding development? Were they kept deliberately in the dark or did they join the cover-up?

In other words, is this an international conspiracy to protect the F-35 from parliamentary and public scrutiny, or is it simply a domestic cover-up in the U.S.?

The cover-up also raises shareholder information issues for Lockheed Martin and United Technologies, Pratt & Whitney’s corporate parent. Lockheed Martin, for example, makes no mention of the engine freeze in its July 22 statement on second quarter results, although the F-35 program is so crucial to its future that it is specifically mentioned in its “Forward Looking Statement” regulatory warning.

Caveat Aviator: F-35 pilots should be very, very worried.

P&W spokesman Matthew Bates told Bloomberg that “the company replaced all the suspect engine parts in its inventory...but determined that the metal in 147 F-35 engines already delivered didn’t pose a flight-safety risk.”

Is it plausible that replacement of “suspect” parts was necessary only on undelivered engines, while all 147 engines already delivered were safe to fly, given that the suspect parts for all engines came from the same supplier?

After an F-22 pilot was killed by hypoxia and the USAF denied and dissembled, two pilots went public and said they would no longer fly F-22s because they deemed it was unsafe to fly, which finally led the air force to order a new oxygen system.

Pilots flying F-35s powered by a single engine that catches fire and that has parts that could be made from “suspect” titanium, would do well to consider their personal safety. Caveat Aviator, indeed.

[11bee]

Pratt's having a tough time lately. First one of their new engines has a catastrophic failure and brings Bombardier's new CS regional jet program to a halt for nearly 4 months, then they have the titanium supply issue, then one of their engines is responsible for the first loss of an F-35 (or maybe Pratt will convince us that it was the pilot's fault for performing a "relatively aggressive maneuver".

Regardless, not a very impressive run....

[Check Six]

So you take an Op-Ed piece as a newsworthy story ?

[TaiidanTomcat]

By Giovanni de Briganti

quit reading after that.

Edited September 18, 2014 by TaiidanTomcat

[Jennings]

So you take an Op-Ed piece as a newsworthy story ?

Where does it say that's an op-ed? It's a story about a potential cover-up. Those are my (and your) tax dollars you hear being flushed down the F-35 toilet.

[GreyGhost]

F-35A is rated for 9Gs, what's the engine rated for?

-Gregg

[Check Six]

quit reading after that.

Bingo!

[11bee]

F-35A is rated for 9Gs, what's the engine rated for?

-Gregg

Maybe 8.5?

Kidding aside, I'm wondering if there were any issues with the engine-mounting structure of the airframe or was it just the engine itself that distorted a bit during that relatively aggressive maneuver?

[MarkW]

I got this far. I gave him until the first verifiably false statement:

given this engine’s long history of problems

Jennings, seriously, you got to maintain some degree of intellectual honesty with this one. The language, and slant chosen in that piece aren't reading to you like a biased opinion piece with a few random facts tossed on top to lend it some air of credibility? It's classic demagoguery, though I normally expect that from talk show radio hosts.

[TaiidanTomcat]

After an F-22 pilot was killed by hypoxia and the USAF denied and dissembled, two pilots went public and said they would no longer fly F-22s because they deemed it was unsafe to fly, which finally led the air force to order a new oxygen system.

This was an interesting theory as well. The USAF denied the problem? And only after 2 pilots went public "which finally" led the air force to "order a new oxygen system"? and then trying to tie that into the F135? Bravo, sir. Fine story telling.

where there is smoke, there's fire; where there is no smoke, create it and imply fire. His reporting on the camp bastion attack making STOVL obsolete was pretty mind blowing as well, along with his story on the RAAF's F-35 Roll out, which was but one paragraph and then carried an "editors" note that called the roll out a "fake roll out" and was 3 times longer than the actual story itself.

He basically has a history, and you can see from the F-22 quote there, of taking facts and twisting them to suit a narrative, see also: "Correlation does not equal causation" and "wet streets cause rain"

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward – reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

did he really try to say the USAF denied the Raptor oxygen problem? it didn't ground the fleet for months, and look for solutions all over and bring in outside help, and award contracts to help find the problem, and keep flight restrictions going while monitoring pilots and planes and continue to try and solve the problem with multiple fixes? And the only thing that truly solved it was 2 pilots going public before the air force surrended and put in a new oxygen system?

That wasn't that long ago and I remember all of us following that on a thread here on ARC. Did anyone remember it going down like he says it did? And then, trying to parlay that into faulty engines that pilots should not fly with? What does the F-22 oxygen problem have to do with Engines in the F-35?

Edited September 18, 2014 by TaiidanTomcat

[TaiidanTomcat]

Pratt & Whitney was forced to halt deliveries of engines for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter after identifying problems with a titanium supplier, and will pay to replace parts on dozens of jets that have already been delivered to the military.

The unit of United Technologies Corp. UTX -0.47% said Friday that it had halted deliveries of the F-135 engine in late May after concerns emerged about the source of the titanium, whose strength and light weight make it widely used in military and commercial aircraft.

Pratt is the sole engine supplier for the F-35, and already is under pressure from the Pentagon over its failure to meet commitments to cut costs for the delayed and over-budget program. An engine fire in June has also cast doubt on the plane's ability to enter combat service with the Marine Corps next year.

The company said it had dropped the supplier, A&P Alloys Inc., from its supply chain. Pratt said it also reported the problems to federal agencies, including the Pentagon's Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and the U.S. attorney's office.

A representative for West Bridgewater, Mass.,-based A&P Alloys didn't immediately reply to a request for comment.

The affected part is called a fan-variable vane arm, and had already been installed in more than 100 delivered engines. The parts aren't viewed as a flight safety risk, and will be replaced during regular maintenance, with the cost borne by Pratt, the company said.

The halt to deliveries in May affected 14 engines due to be installed by Lockheed Martin Corp., the F-35's lead contractor. The suspension was then extended because of the ongoing probe into a June 23 engine fire that led to a temporary grounding of the F-35 fleet. The jets are flying again, though restrictions remain on their speed and endurance.

Pratt didn't say where it found alternative titanium supplies, but alongside Boeing Co. it has been stockpiling titanium parts in case U.S. diplomatic tensions escalated with Russia, the largest producer of the metal.

"Our robust sourcing strategy will help mitigate customer impact from this situation," said Pratt in a statement. The company said the titanium was also used to make parts for commercial aircraft engines, but didn't detail whether these would also have to be replaced.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/pratt-whitney-delays-f-35-engine-deliveries-on-titanium-concerns-1409349892

United Technologies Corp. (UTX)’s Pratt & Whitney unit said it suspended delivery of engines for the F-35 jet, the Pentagon’s costliest weapons program, over concern that a supplier may have provided “suspect” titanium.

Delivery of engines was halted in May after an in-house inspection and testing process “raised questions about the origin” of the titanium, spokesman Matthew Bates said in an e-mailed statement. The company replaced all the suspect engine parts in its inventory for failing to meet specifications, but determined that the metal in 147 F-35 engines already delivered didn’t pose a flight-safety risk, he said.

Pratt & Whitney, the sole provider of engines for the F-35, has faced criticism from Pentagon officials for failing to reduce prices quickly enough and for lapses in quality. The engine accounts for $68.4 billion of the $398.6 billion projected cost of the F-35 being built by Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)

After the company’s internal review raised doubts about the titanium’s origin, Pratt & Whitney “immediately reported its concern” to the Justice Department, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service and the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, Bates said. The suspension affected 10 engines that probably would have been delivered by now and four more that are not yet under contract. The titanium is also used on some parts of commercial engines made by Pratt & Whitney Canada.

Frank Kendall, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for acquisition, has been informed of the issue by officials “who will continue to keep him updated on any implications for the F-35 program,” spokeswoman Maureen Schumann said in an e-mailed statement.

Halt Remains

The unit of Hartford, Connecticut-based United Technologies also issued an industrywide alert to contractors about the supplier. The halt in engine deliveries remains in place until the Pentagon determines what caused a June 23 engine fire in an F-35.

The hold on deliveries is one of 30 “potential problem notifications” that Pratt & Whitney voluntarily issued on engines or components since Oct. 1, according to the Pentagon program office. It said that 25 notifications were issued through April, including some that delayed the assembly of engines.

The warnings concerned items such as material certification for an oil-pump gasket, the quality process involving a heat shield for a bearing compartment, incorrect assembly of an actuator bearing and failure to provide heat treatment for a fuel-oil cooler part, the F-35 program office said in an e-mailed statement.

‘Poor Management’

The Defense Contract Management Agency wrote in a June internal assessment that Pratt & Whitney’s “continued poor management of suppliers is a primary driver for the increased potential problem notifications.”

The incidents “have resulted in delinquent deliveries of engines,” the agency said. “This trend will continue until the contractor improves its management of subcontractors and suppliers.”

Bates, the Pratt & Whitney spokesman, said “the vast majority” of problem notifications “are minor issues or no issues at all” and “do not have any impact on specifications or field performance” of engines.

Only four of the 30 notifications “required action in the field,” he said.

The Pentagon’s F-35 program office said in a statement that Pratt & Whitney’s “persistent problems stem from the supply chain” because 80 percent of the engine is produced by many different subcontractors.

New Requirements

“It has been about 30 years since PW has designed and started production of a new single-engine fighter engine” and “there are new critical safety item requirements for single-engine safety that have been applied to this engine,” it said.

Pratt & Whitney said in its statement that it’s no longer “accepting parts made from material provided by” the supplier of the titanium, A&P Alloys Inc. based in West Bridgewater, Massachusetts.

The supplier provided “some conflicting documentation” which “made P&W experts question the pedigree of specific material used in our engines,” the company said.

A&P Alloys “stands behind the quality of its products,” Tracy Miner, an attorney with Boston-based Demeo LLP representing the company, said in an e-mailed statement. “A&P has been supplying metals for use in Pratt & Whitney products for almost 50 years and this is the first time the quality of the products has ever been questioned.”

‘Blatantly Unfair’

“Unfortunately, despite requests, A&P has not been given access to the material to do its own testing, nor have results of any testing done by Pratt & Whitney been provided to A&P for analysis,” she said. “No ‘surveillance’ information has been provided by Pratt, either. It is blatantly unfair to destroy A&P’s business without allowing A&P access to the materials in question.”

Asked about the comments from A&P Alloys, Bates, the Pratt & Whitney spokesman, said in an e-mail that the supplier “had the material in its possession prior to delivery and sold it with certifications falsely representing the source and quality of the material. Whether A&P now has access to Pratt & Whitney’s recent test results is irrelevant to this issue.”

Pratt & Whitney isn’t asking the Pentagon to pay the cost associated with removal and replacement of “parts with the suspect titanium,” Bates said.

The contract management agency estimated the per-engine cost at as much as $50,000. Bates wouldn’t comment on the figure.

To contact the reporter on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-29/pratt-whitney-halted-f-35-engine-delivery-over-titanium.html

[82Whitey51]

Crappy cell phone video...but this happened today;

vid courtesy of Titan

[Check Six]

I got this far. I gave him until the first verifiably false statement:

Jennings, seriously, you got to maintain some degree of intellectual honesty with this one. The language, and slant chosen in that piece aren't reading to you like a biased opinion piece with a few random facts tossed on top to lend it some air of credibility? It's classic demagoguery, though I normally expect that from talk show radio hosts.

Bingo again .

Which is why I called it an Op-Ed piece.

[Devilleader501]

http://www.military.com/video/aircraft/jet-fighters/afa-2014-the-f-35-issues/3790123269001/

Here is Bogdan telling what is the problem with the F135 engine. I am pretty sure this isn't a cover up because it explains exactly what happened and what we know already. What it does explain is what is going to happen in the future to remedy this problem. The F-35 while still loaded with bloatware like all of the phones and computers we buy from manufacturers like Samsung can and will have the extra weight taken off in due time.

TT I am interested in seeing this article if you would kindly post it for us.

His reporting on the camp bastion attack making STOVL obsolete was pretty mind blowing as well

I think with UFO's, the area 51 thing, and the 911 attacks have gotten to people thinking that the government is after us or something. I do not understand why people are so abruptly offended by the F-35. Sure it costs a lot of money thats what we have to sacrifice for the best of the best. Is it going to have problems, yes no acquisition to date has ever had a fail free drive. We have developed one of the worlds most advanced fighters to date and you expect it to be cheap. Really?

What makes me mad more than anything is everyone wants to stop our Defense budget instead of looking at other programs that our so called Government is abusing. I am by no means trying to make this political but common guys. The USA is our number one goal in protection. There are hundreds of different programs that can be cut instead of our Defense. I am not going to rattle off at things right now but Defense should't be one of them.

The draw backs in recruits and enlistments is one of the things we should not be doing right now especially with what is going on in this world right now. That said the F-35 from my eyes down here in Yuma is actually doing really well. They fly their asses off and on a daily basis run through our pits to recover and re-fly their missions.

I do not know everything about the F-35's that are here but I do know that when they go OIC VMFA-121 will be stationed in Japan from there out.

I am learning more and more about the F-35 as time progresses but for everyone to bag on said aircraft before it truly has a chance to prove itself is not the nature of this community.

[11bee]

The USA is our number one goal in protection.

I'll match that phrase and trump you with:

All your base are belong to us.

As far as why some folks take umbrage at the F-35, I guess they might feel that the program has been horribly mismanaged and isn't really necessary to maintain America's status as the most heavily armed (by far) nation on the planet.

That's just my guess but I haven't been to my subversive anti-America, anti-JSF weekly meeting for some time now, so I could be wrong. Hope the "community" (whatever that is, I'm guessing it's just another name for Fanboyz) doesn't get too upset by my hypothesis.

Edited September 19, 2014 by 11bee

[TaiidanTomcat]

TT I am interested in seeing this article if you would kindly post it for us.

His reporting on the camp bastion attack making STOVL obsolete was pretty mind blowing as well

Sure :thumbsup:/> :

PARIS --- The rationale for the F-35B fighter took a serious beating last week, when a dozen Taliban attacking Camp Bastion destroyed six US Marine Corps AV-8B Harriers on the tarmac, and seriously damaged two more.

By exposing a glaring hole in its operational doctrine, this attack shows conclusively that, just like the Emperor in Andersen’s fairy tale, the F-35B Short Take-Off, Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant of the Joint Strike Fighter has no clothes,

The F-35B – the most complex, overweight and expensive variant of the Joint Strike Fighter – is being developed to provide the US Marine Corps with a successor to the Harrier in the ground attack and fire support role. Marine doctrine envisages the F-35B initially operating from large-deck amphibious ships, and then moving to operating bases ashore once a beachhead has been secured to provide close air support.

In a written Jan. 20, 2012 statement, Marine Corps Commandant General James F. Amos again justified the STOVL F-35B as “the only model capable of operating [both] off of our large deck amphibious warships, and in austere and remote expeditionary land-based operating environments.”

But if perimeter defenses at Camp Bastion, one of the world’s most heavily protected bases, can be breached by a dozen people on foot, how will the F-35B survive in “austere and remote expeditionary and-based environments” when attacked by a conventional enemy with heavy weapons?

The answer, as now demonstrated by the Taliban, is that it cannot. So half of the F-35B’s raison d’être – its capability to deploy ashore along with the troops - has been literally blown away.

It should now be clear to all – as it famously was to former US Defense Secretary Robert Gates – that there is no justification for buying large numbers of STOVL attack aircraft. As Gates noted at the time, the Marines have not stormed a beach since WW II; the conclusion is that it makes little sense to buy the F-35B on the off chance they might have to in future.

There many reasons why the era of STOVL has passed: the much-improved firepower of modern helicopters; the wide availability of very smart weapons fired at very long stand-off ranges; the wide availability and high accuracy of armed UAVs; the microscopically low probability of Marines having to land without being supported by US Navy tactical aircraft.

The savings from axing the F-35B would be very considerable, and troops ashore would still be supported – but by the Marine’s large fleet of armed helicopters, including Cobra gunships and armed Hueys, as well as by US Navy fighters.

In a logical world, the Taliban attack at Camp Bastion would sound the knell for basing STOVL aircraft ashore for close air support.

In a logical world, the Pentagon would see this, cancel the F-35B and redeploy its funds and engineering talent to speed up development of the two other versions, the F-35A for the air force and F-35C for the navy.

In a logical world….

-ends-

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/feature/138478/attack-shows-f_35b-%E2%80%98has-no-clothes%E2%80%99.html

I'll post my rebuttal if you would like as well.

I'll match that phrase and trump you with:

All your base are belong to us.

As far as why some folks take umbrage at the F-35, I guess they might feel that the program has been badly mismanaged and isn't really necessary to maintain America's status as the most heavily armed (by far) nation on the planet.

That's just my guess...

Which is too bad because overall the F-35 is a going to improve combat capability while also adding efficiency, by necking down logistics so you get more bang for less buck. Not to mention that Airpower has been the West's biggest advantage for some time, if that falls behind its going to mean long more drawn out conflicts complete with additional loss. Americas greatest weapon systems are always a huge PITA to get into service, and then amazing performers when they finally make it.

I think one of the biggest problems with the perception of the JSF is "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" The idea that canceling it, and losing what will be a fine aircraft will solve all the development and procurement problems that are inherent in the system itself. Development and procurement problems are not at all unique with the JSF, And would be factors on whatever from scratch aircraft we start on tomorrow if the JSF is canceled today. not to mention all the cost and investment you lose that have been invested so far. There are also rumors of JSF avionics and engines being put on the LRS-B so again that R&D money that goes beyond just the JSF, not to mention other future systems that will use JSF tech.

Lets not pretend the JSF is the first program to get delayed, go over budget, or have problems. Which is another reason the Military is continuing on it. Whatever comes next will be the same. You might as well go through all the issues at once and get 3 airplanes out of it, rather than one at a time, plus huge cancellation risk.

Edited September 19, 2014 by TaiidanTomcat

[majortomski]

Pardon me for coming in late on this but the article above just made me do an RCA Victor stare at the screen.

Insurgents defeat your perimeter defenses and destroy aircraft.

Equals

STOVL is bad.

If the aircraft had been helicopters would the author been on a rant against rotory winged flight?

If they had been cargo aircraft would he be against spending money on transports?

That is the most illogical pile of irrational thought I've ever read.

[TaiidanTomcat]

Pardon me for coming in late on this but the article above just made me do an RCA Victor stare at the screen.

Insurgents defeat your perimeter defenses and destroy aircraft.

Equals

STOVL is bad.

If the aircraft had been helicopters would the author been on a rant against rotory winged flight?

If they had been cargo aircraft would he be against spending money on transports?

That is the most illogical pile of irrational thought I've ever read.

Yes, sir. I agree. Its a huge logic fail. I'm glad it wasn't KC-135, or new refueling tankers would be a waste of money. I also fail to see the "more heavily armed helicopters" either. There has been no revolution in rotors save for the V-22, other than that its been evolutionary improvements, and the weapons haven't changed much either, nothing that would supplant fixed wing support. We don't have a helicopter that can do what even a harrier can now, let alone an F-35. Lets not forget all the Apaches that got mortared in Iraq, but of course the author says helicopters are actually better now, so I guess those losses don't matter when they get hit on base. :rolleyes:/>

I recognize the debate about whether STOVL should have been incorporated into the JSF, (I think it was right to do so) But STOVL has proven its worth though, as early as 1982 in fact. I amazed that there is still debate about it. To the me the question is not "STOVL? yes or no?" its "We know STOVL is worth having, but should it be included in a joint program that includes conventional and CVN aircraft?" and my answer there is "yes" but its still a better question.

Camp bastion is a massive 20 square mile base with 28,000 people, and runways that can accommodate even those huge Antonov transport planes, so its the opposite of a small austere FOB in the middle of nowhere with the bare minimum of facilities that is meant to move with the FLOT like the USMC envisions. Its a conventional base if ever there was one.

His other Gem regarding the RAAF's Rollout:

(EDITOR’S NOTE: Strictly speaking, this ceremony “commemorates” nothing, and although described as a “roll-out,” the aircraft was unveiled inside a hangar.

The event was attended by Australian Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, whose presence is not mentioned in Lockheed’s release, and whose ministerial portfolio is not mentioned in the Australian DoD release at top.

Surprisingly, no official representative of the Australian Department of Defence was present, despite the record A$12 billion that the F-35 will cost simply to buy.)

LOL it doesn't count because the aircraft didn't leave the hanger?

No official rep?

AM Brown doesn't count?

Tell me this guy doesn't sound desperately bitter. Here is a link to the above quote which has suspiciously been removed... Coverup?

http://www.defense-aerospace.com/articles-view/release/3/155786/lockheed-unveils-first-f_35s-for-australia.html

Edited September 19, 2014 by TaiidanTomcat

[TaiidanTomcat]

(Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT.N) is close to signing a roughly $4 billion deal with the U.S. Defense Department for 43 more F-35 fighter jets that will lower the cost of the jet's airframe by 2 to 4 percent, sources familiar with the program said.

The reduction is part of a drive by the company and other key F-35 suppliers to slash the projected $400 billion cost of developing and building 2,457 U.S. jets in coming years - and the $1 trillion in additional costs to operate and maintain them over 50 years.

Lockheed's F-35 program manager Lorraine Martin and Air Force Lieutenant General Chis Bogdan this week both said the two sides were "close" to agreement for an eighth batch of F-35s. Neither disclosed details.

Sources familiar with the process said they expected the cost of the F-35 A-model airframe to drop to $94 million to $96 million under the Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) contract, down from $98 million in the seventh production contract.

The government buys the jets' engines separately from Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp (UTX.N). Pratt this week said it is near agreement with the Pentagon on contracts for the seventh and eighth batches of its F135 engines that will lower the engine cost by a combined 7.5 percent to 8 percent.

Industry and government officials are considering other initiatives to lower plane costs in coming years, including changes in manufacturing, and possible "block buys" by some of the foreign countries with pending orders: Britain, Australia, Norway, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Israel and Japan.

South Korea is due to finalize its order for 40 jets later this month.

Lockheed and two suppliers, Britain's BAE Systems (BAES.L) and Northrop Grumman Corp (NOC.N), in July announced plans to invest $170 million in cost-cutting measures expected to generate combined savings of $1.8 billion.

Lockheed's Martin said 66 projects were already under way as part of the so-called "Blueprint for Affordability," with nearly 550 more under consideration.

The companies say they can lower the plane costs to under $80 million, including the engine, per jet by 2019.

"That's an audacious target, but it can be realized," Martin told reporters at the annual Air Force Association conference.

Pratt & Whitney, and Britain's Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc, which makes the lift fan for the plane's Marine Corps version, are finalizing a separate deal to invest their funds in similar cost-cutting measures, officials said.

The companies are also looking at grouping aircraft orders from Australia and other countries into block buys, Martin told Reuters in an interview.

"We're working with General Bogdan and his team to see if there's something we can do to leverage (those orders) that could have price savings not only for them, but for everyone else too," Martin said.

The initiative is likely to be discussed at next week's meeting of the F-35 Joint Executive Steering Board in Oslo.

http://www.financecourier.com/news/story/780637/lockheed-eyes-2-4-percent-cost-reduction-in-next-f-35-contract/full_story.html

[MarkW]

LRIP 8 still isn't a done deal, despite being the number one contracting priority over the last calendar year. And while costs are coming down year to year, the overall costs targets are being missed by a wider margin. Good thing they now only measures savings in relative, not absolute terms.

[TaiidanTomcat]

[Check Six]

Well; I attended Mountain Home AFB Airshow today and got to see, not just one, but two F-35A's from Luke AFB .

Good looking a/c in person.

Unfortunately they parked them at the very front corner of the flightline so I only got to see the front and port side of the two a/c. Kind of a 'leggy' a/c because it sits tall. And/or; The MLG seems to stick out/show predominately vs being tucked up against the fuselage and half hidden by LG doors.

The F-22 was scheduled for static display but was a no-show. My son was real bummed.

Besides the Thunderbirds performance, the only other active duty military a/c demonstration were four Singapore F-15SG take off and fly-by. What seemed peculiar was that two of the four F-15SGs flew right over the static displays/visitors area. In my 35+ airshow attendances the only a/c that flew over said static displays/visitors area was either the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds. The other two F-15SGs flew over the flightline.

I also learned something new today: AF flight crews are flying/training/using EA-18Gs!

There was a Growler on display and I noticed an AF flight crew hanging out with the a/c. I struck up a conversation with the WSO and he said they're currently training to use the Growler in the AF. I joked about landing on a carrier and he said they will be carrier-qualified! The Growler that was on display had 'Navy' on it's fuselage side, an AF crest on the vertical tail, and will be crewed by the AF. He told me they're stationed in WA outside of Seattle.

Very interesting.

[TaiidanTomcat]

Purple power