source:’s recent announcement that he is considering acquiring the in place of the does not add up for a leader who seeks “to make America great again.” Too much is at stake for the United States to rely on a fighter aircraft design whose roots extend back to the Nixon Administration. While the President-Elect’s concerns regarding the is wholly valid, such decisions must be weighed in the context of current security demands.
Air supremacy, the mission fulfilled by the fighter planes, plays a pivotal role in warfare. Without , no military operation can succeed. Planes like the F-35 represent the lynchpin on which ground power, sea power, and airpower can effectively engage. Want proof of this? Simply look at June 6, 1944, D-Day. By controlling the sky, the Allies were able launch a decisive invasion on the beaches of France that effectively sealed Nazi Germany’s fate. This effort would never have worked had the landing forces been subject to robust enemy air strikes or had Rommel’s panzer reinforcements been free to race to the beaches on road and rail networks undamaged by Allied air attack.
However, America’s ability to control the sky . The majority of the fighter aircraft serving with the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps are 1960s and 1970s-era designs. Enemy nations have invested considerable sums in their — better radars, better missiles, better computers, command, & control — which means that planes like the F/A-18 are likely to get shot down in a conflict. If Mr. Trump is concerned about saving money, the country should be investing in systems that can execute their missions and return home intact to fight another day. Buying decades-old designs is a recipe for disaster: aircraft shot down, pilots killed or captured, and objectives left unmet.
That is why Presidents on both sides of the aisle, Congress, and service leaders have pursued the F-35 for nearly two decades. Over those years, the program has made some — but no acquisition program is perfect, and the larger they are, the more problems they have. Nevertheless, today the F-35 is on track to provide a huge capability for : $85M by 2019. Decades-old designs like the F/A-18, F-15, and F-16 cost well within that range or more depending on what upgrades to the basic fighter are included.
It is also crucial to recognize that the F-35 doesn’t just do the same things better (though it does): It does things the legacy fighters just can’t do at all. First and foremost, planes like the F/A-18 will never be very stealthy because their designs were never built to evade radar, as evident in their shapes, construction materials, or avionics. Modernization cannot fix this problem: Stealth has to be built into a design from day one.
On top of this, the older aircraft were designed before the information age. One of the F-35’s most important attributes is its ability to with assets across the battle arena. The positive effect of this is huge, like the difference between the brick-sized cell phones of the 1980s and a modern iPhone with many times the capabilities packed into much less space. Yes, they both can make calls, but the latter’s ability to provide key information anywhere, anytime has fundamentally enhanced the way in which we live our lives. Turning back the clock really is not an option.
Smart phones have also combined activities that used to require multiple independent systems: stereos, cameras, address books, calendars, desk top computers, GPS, and more. The same holds true for the F-35, because it does the job of multiple legacy planes. If Mr. Trump thinks the F-35 is expensive, he might want to consider the cost of buying and sustaining separate aircraft to execute the missions of air superiority and strike; ; and allies; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; ; surface-to-air missile suppression; and more. There is no way this alternative is cheaper.
National security interests demand modern combat aircraft that are capable of executing their missions. The country also has a moral imperative to equip those in uniform with planes that will get them home safe. It’s a dangerous delusion to seek “savings” in buying decades-old designs that won’t even make it to the target.
Failing to build a modern, capable military invites our enemies to pursue aggressive action. It is no mistake that is and is destabilizing : They sense the US is weak and are taking advantage of the situation. We must redress these circumstances. Is it a good idea to try and get best value from a ? Of course. However, it’s also crucial to buy capabilities that are capable of fighting effectively and winning. The F-35 is in the United States that can do the job.
"... the F-35 is on track to ..." let's wait and see where to
source:
Five F-35Bs on USS America, LHA-6///nice!
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F-35C doing some ordinance testing for the US Navy
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The beat goes on.
source is DoDBuzzJanuary 3, 2017
Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis — Donald Trump’s choice for defense secretary — backed the jet program recently criticized questioned by the president-elect, according to a senator who met with Mattis on Tuesday.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Hartford Courant newspaper that Mattis gave a “clear commitment” to the continuation of the F-35 program despite Trump’s repeated criticism of its huge costs and questionable performance thus far.
In an earlier statement, Blumenthal said of his meeting with Mattis, “I was encouraged by his clear commitment to American air superiority and the important role of the F-35 program in sustaining and enhancing it.”
United Technologies Corp., which has headquarters in Hartford, supplies the engines for the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made F-35 and thousands of jobs in Connecticut are dependent on continuation of the program.
Trump last month said the costs of the F-35 program, projected at more than $400 billion for development and procurement of nearly 2,500 aircraft, were “out of control” and suggested that he may consider with a version of the made by competitor Boeing Co.
Lockheed Chief Executive Officer Marillyn Hewson met with Trump before Christmas and pledged to revamp the program.
“I’ve heard his message loud and clear about reducing the cost of the F-35,” she said in a statement. “I gave him my personal commitment to drive the cost down aggressively.”
Mattis has a reputation for independence and his backing of the F-35 would not be the first time that his judgment has been at odds with Trump’s.
In lavishing praise on Mattis during the announcement of his choice of defense secretary, Trump said it was a revelation to him when Mattis rejected the use of so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” on suspected terrorists.
Trump said Mattis told him that he could get more out a prisoner with “” than he could with torture.
Mattis met with Blumenthal in the course of making the rounds on Capitol Hill to ease his path to getting the waiver that would allow him to serve as defense secretary in the new Trump administration.
Mattis, often referred to as “Mad Dog” by Trump, also met with Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and others ahead of the panel’s hearing next week on the required waiver and his qualifications to succeed outgoing Defense Secretary Ashton Carter.
Before he can be confirmed by the Senate, Mattis will need special legislation from Congress exempting him from the federal law barring members of the military from serving as defense secretary until seven years after retirement. Mattis retired from the Marine Corps and his last post as head of U.S. Central Command in 2013.
Enacted after World War II, the law was aimed at preserving civilian control of the military. The only waiver previously granted was to Gen. George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff during the last world war.
Mattis, a legend in the Marine Corps for his leadership in Iraq and Afghanistan, has widespread support for the nomination but some senators have about granting the waiver.
In a statement last month after Trump announced that Mattis was his choice, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a New York Democrat and member of the defense committee, said, “While I deeply respect Gen. Mattis’ service, I will oppose a waiver. Civilian control of our military is a fundamental principle of American democracy, and I will not vote for an exception to this rule.”
In his own statement last month, Reed said, “It is clear that Gen. Mattis is a respected Marine and strategic thinker who served with honor and distinction. What is less clear is how Congress would go about changing the law to allow him or any recently retired senior officer to serve as the head of the Pentagon. That would require a debate about our Constitutional principle of civilian control of the military and passing a new bill.”
... The most expensive F-35 variant has hit another major snag that could take years to fixThe Navy has been dragging its feet, ...
source (now it says the article appeared eleven hours ago):The Pentagon has established a "red team" to address considerable shortcomings with the F-35C, the carrier-based naval variant of the most expensive weapons project in history.
The F-35, subject to cost overruns and delays throughout its production, reached an initial state of military readiness with its Air Force and Marine variants in 2016, but the Navy's variant lags behind in part due to an issue with its nose gear during catapult-assisted takeoffs from aircraft carriers, .
Essentially the problem, detailed in a Navy report with data dating back to 2014, deals with rough takeoffs that hurt and disorient pilots at the critical moment when they're taking off from a carrier.
The Pentagon's red team found the problem was due to several factors central to the plane's design, and recommended several fixes that will take several months to several years to fully fix. The report states that long term actions to address the problem will not take place until 2019, at which point they'll take 12-36 months to implement.
Redesigns to the plane, as well as to carriers, may be necessary to fully address the problem.
A Pentagon deficiency report in 2015 stated that extreme movements in the cockpit during launch risked pilot health.
One hundred and five pilots completing catapult launches rated their level of pain or discomfort on a scale of one to five. Of the 105, 74 pilots reported "moderate" pain or a 3, 18 pilots reported "severe" pain or a 4, and one pilot reported "severe pain that persists" after launching from an aircraft carrier.
"The oscillations shake the pilot's head sufficiently to impair their ability to consistently read flight critical data, which poses a safety of flight risk," reads the report by Inside Defense.
This pain, more than a mere inconvenience, threatens the ability of pilots to read flight-critical data as they perform the complicated task of launching from a moving platform at sea. Exacerbating the problem, some pilots locked down their harnesses to avoid jostling around during the launch, but this makes it more difficult for the pilot to eject, should they need to.
At a roundtable discussion in December, F-35 Program Executive Officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan assured reporters that F-35C takeoff problems only occur when the planes takeoff with low weight load outs, saying " you don't see this problem at all" when the plane is more laden with ordnance or fuel.
A representative from Lockheed Martin told Business Insider that all the catapult launches they had monitored were successful.
The F-35C was of the Joint Strike Fighter program for the most recent Low Rate Initial Production contract. The Navy currently operates aging F-18s, nineof which have in the last six months of 2016. The Aviationist's David Cenciotti attributes this to the age of the planes.
Meanwhile, the Navy awaits the F-35C's as other world powers invest heavily in their naval and anti-ship capabilities. President-elect Trump has expressed interest in building dozens of new ships, taking the US Navy's total from 272 to 350 operational ships, as well as .
F-35 pilots have told Business Insider that the F-35s stealth characteristics make it to operating in heavily contested airspace like the South China Sea, the Baltics, and lately Syria.
Lockheed Martin told Business Insider that it will look into the Inside Defense report. This post will be updated with the company's future comment.