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I have no idea how much this costs (IIRC, the B-1 is actually more expensive to operate, per flight hour, than either the B-2 or the B-52), but we've already been using the Bone in the CAS/COIN role in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2008 with positive results. With the most recent B-1 upgrades, including the replacement of the old CSRL with a universal multiple ejector rack, and the Integrated Battle Station upgrade, the B-1 is even more capable than before.
"There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge
A U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber flies above Kobani on Oct. 18, 2014 as seen from the Turkish border town of Suruc.
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
For four months, the B-1B bombers of the U.S. Air Force’s 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron relentlessly hit Islamic State fighters in eastern Kobani from the air, slowly watching the line of control in that city swing back to Washington’s Kurdish allies.
The air tactics developed over Kobani, senior U.S. officials said, will hopefully prove to be a model of what close communication between an allied force on the ground and American aircraft in the skies can do. The lesson of Kobani, officials said, will be tried again when moderate Syrian rebels trained by the U.S. enter the fight against the Islamic State militants inside other parts of Syria.
The 9th Bomb Squadron deployed to the American air base in Qatar in July, prepared to close out the combat phase of the Afghanistan war and Operation Enduring Freedom, which formally ended in December.
But when President Barack Obama announced the U.S. would begin airstrikes first over Iraq and then Syria, the squadron’s mission expanded. While the planes flew regularly over Afghanistan, the bulk of the ordnance dropped by the aircrews was over the Syrian town of Kobani.
The squadron started conducting operations over Kobani the first week of October. At that point, Islamic State fighters, known in the military by the acronym ISIL, were moving largely unrestricted inside the town.
On his first sortie over Kobani, Squadron Commander Lt. Col. Ed Sumangil, expected the mission to be uneventful. Instead the crew “went Winchester,” Air Force lingo for dropping all of the bombs in a payload. The B1-B planes carry 500-lb and 2,000-lb bombs.
“We got up there thinking it would be quiet. and immediately we started getting targets against ISIL command and control elements,” he said.
Reviewing the damage assessments in the next days and weeks, Lt. Col. Sumangil said, it was clear that the airstrikes, combined with a Kurdish offensive on the ground, “basically stopped their progress.”
The U.S. had established close communications with the People’s Defense Units, or YPG, a Kurdish secularist group that led the fight to defend Kobani. YPG fighters communicated with liaisons and air controllers in the operations centers set up by the U.S.
The Combined Air Operation Center in Qatar then took that information and sent bomb coordinates to the B-1s flying over Kobani.
“The YPG, prior to that, was skeptical what our contribution was going to be,” Lt. Col. Sumangil said. “It essentially stopped their advance, not completely cold … but that was the first time they felt air power combined with their fighters on the ground can really stop their [Islamic State fighters’] progress though Kobani.”
During as much as eight hours flying over Kobani, the 9th Bomb Squadron would get targets called in to the air operations center from air controllers working with the Kurds. The B-1 crew would get the target, drop a weapon and then get confirmation from the fighters on the ground.
“It was almost like an orchestra,” said Maj. Brandon Miller, the squadron’s director of operations. “The information was flowing… almost like clockwork.”
Each day the B-1 crews would be briefed on where the dividing line was in Kobani, what the Air Force would call the Forward Line of Troops, or FLOT.
“For the four months we were there it was always moving,” said Capt. Todd Saksa, the squadron’s chief of weapons and tactics.
For the B-1 crews, the fight over Kobani was a combination of the tactics they had honed striking insurgents in Afghanistan and a more traditional, conventional battle, with opposing forces fighting over a defined front.
“It didn’t feel like 2015 or 2014,” Capt. Saksa said. “It felt like two armies going at it over a set line.”
Not long after the U.S. started dropping bombs, the line began to move. By December, Kurdish forces on the ground started taking larger parts of Kobani. By January, the town was back in the Kurds’ control.
Capt. Saksa said when he first flew over Kobani, the Kurdish fighters had only a third of the city under their control. But after four months of bombing in support of the Kurdish forces, the tide turned in their favor.
“By the time the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron came out of theater the YPG had pretty much taken the entire town” Capt. Saksa said. “We take a lot of pride in that because we spent a lot of time overhead.”
Inside the B-1 crew that pounded ISIS with 1,800 bombs
By Brian Everstine, Staff writer 10:52 a.m. EDT August 23, 2015
For almost five months, B-1 crews from the 9th Bomb Squadron at Dyess Air Force Base, Texas, focused on one town — Kobani in Syria — in the battle against the Islamic State group.
Kurdish forces were entrenched in their own city as waves of Islamic State fighters advanced.
The enemy was “sending troops there constantly,” said a weapons systems officer from the 9th Bomb Squadron identified for security reasons only as Scram. “They were very willing to impale themselves on that city.”
That made the battle site target-rich: There were fighters out in the open and on top of buildings and bridges.
The B-1 was right for the fight. It can carry up to 84 500-pound general-purpose bombs, or a combination of dozens of other weaponry of similar weight. It can loiter on station for up to 10 hours with a single air refueling. The U.S. airmen could stay on station for hours, taking on targets from Kurdish forces and developing their own targets to push the fighters out.
The squadron dropped about 660 bombs on Kobani, about one-third of all the bombs it dropped during the first five months of Operation Inherent Resolve. The squadron says those bombs killed more than 1,000 Islamic State fighters.
“To be part of something, to go out and stomp these guys out, it was completely overwhelming and exciting,” a B-1 pilot identified as Maj. Johnson said.
By the time the 9th Bomb Squadron completed its deployment in late January, the Kurdish troops had declared victory and claimed Kobani. Islamic State fighters, in speaking to IS-aligned news network Amak in Syria, said the constant airstrikes forced them to withdraw from Kobani.
“I swear by God, their planes did not leave the air, day and night; they did airstrikes all day and night,” an Islamic State fighter told the news agency, according to CNN. “They targeted everything. They even attacked motorcycles; they have not left a building standing. But by God willing we will return and we will have our revenge multiplied.”
Kobani is still under Kurdish control.
That victory is memorable in the now yearlong battle in which the Islamic State has been able to keep its ranks filled and hold on to land — despite the intervention of U.S.and coalition forces. Officials expect the fight to last years.
Expanding mission
The 9th Bomb Squadron crew members who flew the first bomber mission in the fight against the Islamic State learned of their orders just minutes before they took off.
The squadron’s B-1Bs deployed in July 2014 to Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar, in support of the winding down mission in Afghanistan. The crews followed news of the advance of the Islamic State through Iraq and Syria, with many champing at the bit to do something.
On Aug. 8, 2014, U.S. crews did something, with fighters and bombers tasked to begin Operation Inherent Resolve. Orders came to a 9th Bomb Squadron B-1 as it was taxiing toward a runway.
“The crew was planning to fly to Afghanistan,” Maj. Johnson said in an Air Force Times interview. “They were given essentially a last-minute change right before the runway and then headed in the other direction.”
The crew was young for this deployment. It was the first combat deployment for many of the airmen, and it started relatively slowly with its focus on Afghanistan.
Johnson, however, deployed to Iraq before in 2010. He helped train the Iraqi Air Force, teaching pilots to fly T-6s at a base near Tikrit. When he flew bombing missions in 2014 in north Iraq and in Syria, he flew over that air base.
“For me, there was this weird kind of déjà vu of seeing these places, seeing Tikrit, among others,” he said. “The airfield I had been stationed at, unknown at the time when I was overflying it, had been overrun by Daesh [Islamic State].”
For crews used to flying missions in Afghanistan, the fight against the Islamic State was different. They faced targets in urban environments, and an enemy force focused on advancing and taking over large landmarks.
Unlike the missions the B-1 aircrews were used to in Afghanistan, there were no American boots on the ground calling in airstrikes. Instead, the crews relied on a mix of Kurdish troops, coalition surveillance and their own sensors to identify targets.
“It was very different, in a sense. You see a lot more buildup in Iraq,” a B-1 pilot identified as Capt. J said. “From cities, flying over Baghdad and flying over towns. There’s a mix of scenery, it’s maybe more enjoyable to see towns and cities. And to see the Mosul Dam itself, and the big reservoir they have. It’s kind of a neat sight with all the water out in the middle of the desert. It seems out of place, but there it is.”
The B-1s were first tasked under Operation Inherent Resolve with flying on-call support over Baghdad in support of Iraqi forces, but the mission slowly expanded as the Islamic State advanced. In the first month of airstrikes, coalition aircraft dropped 211 bombs. In January, when the squadron finished its deployment, coalition aircraft dropped 2,308.
The ops tempo early in the operation was staggering for the airmen compared with recent activity in Afghanistan. Aircrew would fly twice in 60 hours, with missions lasting up to 10 hours. Including preparation and debrief, duty would typically fill all 24 hours of a day.
Maintenance airmen would routinely work up to 15 hours to fix and turn around a jet to get ready for the next flight.
Going ‘Winchester’
In the military operations world, it’s called going “Winchester.”
The term refers to a military asset expending all of its weapons. When a B-1 returns to base without a single bomb on board, the crew on the ground slaps a “W” sticker inside the bomb bay doors to note the mission.
For the 9th Bomb Squadron’s deployment in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, weapons airmen slapped 31 “W” stickers on the insides of their B-1.
“There’s nothing cooler than seeing the jet come home Winchester, and especially getting to stick that sticker under the door,”a B-1 crew chief identified as Sgt. Barnes said.
In all, the squadron dropped more than 2,000 joint direct attack munitions during its six-month rotation, a number that was “way, way more” than the squadron had dropped on any six-month rotation since at least 2010.
The Winchester missions were among the most difficult for pilots and aircrew, and for the weapons builders and maintainers on the ground tasked with fixing and reloading the B-1s.
For Capt. J, one of those missions came as he flew with his college roommate, who became his co-pilot. On a mission several hours long up to Kobani, the crew identified targets and “emptied the jet.”
That mission helped support a Kurdish advance in the city.
Despite the intense work and long hours, morale was high because the crews knew the mission was important.
“You are not just turning wrenches and putting guys into a state of fatigue for no reason, you are actually supporting a higher objective,” Maj. Johnson said. “You are getting to see the benefits of your work each and every mission.”
Deliberate targeting
U.S. officials maintained the deliberate targeting and strict rules of engagement have limited civilian impact. However, Airwars, an independent group tracking the airstrikes, released a report this month stating that coalition airstrikes have likely killed at least 459 civilians over the past year. Fifty-seven specific strikes killed civilians, and caused 48 possible “friendly fire” deaths.
The Pentagon, in response to the report, said the military works hard to be precise in its targeting and it investigates accusations of civilian casualties. U.S. Central Command has investigated four incidents of alleged civilian casualties, finding that three did not involve civilian deaths and two innocent civilians were killed in the other, according to The Associated Press.
Saving Kobani
The air power wasn’t the main key to the victory in Kobani, according to the Dyess airmen. It was the Kurds themselves, and their ability to fight will continue to be a deciding factor in the future of the operation.
“There were times we were bombing across the street, and as soon as the weapons were going off, they are charging into the rubble to take out what’s left and move forward that line of troops to the next block,” Maj. Johnson said. “It’s an amazing job the [Kurdish forces] did and how they are, more so than air power, critical to victory in Kobani.”
That victory is the squadron’s biggest takeaway from the deployment.
“I look forward to telling my grandkids that I got to help these people to fight off [the Islamic State] and to defend their homes,” Capt. J said.
I have no idea how much this costs (IIRC, the B-1 is actually more expensive to operate, per flight hour, than either the B-2 or the B-52)
Quite the opposite actually, the B-1 is a bargain to fly compared to other aircraft, particularly considering its impressive payload and conventional targeting capabilities. It's no wonder it has seen extensive use in recent conflicts.
going off of memory here, but wasn't there a big issue recently with the exhaust temps on the VSTOL model and the current (and planned) flight decks, to the point of having to redo (redesign) the landing spots on the ships to accommodate them?
and if so, how did this affect international buyers of the vstol version?
going off of memory here, but wasn't there a big issue recently with the exhaust temps on the VSTOL model and the current (and planned) flight decks, to the point of having to redo (redesign) the landing spots on the ships to accommodate them?
and if so, how did this affect international buyers of the vstol version?
"Indeed... the modification to the MV-22 on-deck engine-running procedure for idle running in excess of 10 minutes requires shutting down one engine and either putting a portable heat-shield under the running engine or parking the aircraft with the running engine over the catwalk rather than the deck... thus the need to relocate or protect the items on the catwalk & deck-edge.
These mods are for MV-22 operation, NOT for F-35B operation!
Nearly every heat-related modification to USN LHA/LHD/LPD/LSDs is for MV-22, not F-35B.
While the F-35's exhaust is indeed hot, it isn't substantially hotter than that of the AV-8B, and unlike the MV-22, it isn't aimed downwards in close proximity to the deck for long periods of time. The F-35 generally only rotates the engine downwards for a matter of seconds when taking off or landing. Idling can be done with the engine pointed to the rear like a standard jet.
While the F-35's exhaust is indeed hot, it isn't substantially hotter than that of the AV-8B, and unlike the MV-22, it isn't aimed downwards in close proximity to the deck for long periods of time. The F-35 generally only rotates the engine downwards for a matter of seconds when taking off or landing. Idling can be done with the engine pointed to the rear like a standard jet.
IIRC, the aircraft that was really bad about that was the Yak-141; the efflux from the Soyuz R-79 was so hot it would've blown a hole in the tarmac at Farnborough, so it was not allowed to take-off or land vertically at the airshow there in 1992.
"There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish. The thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember Scrooge, time is short, and suddenly, you're not there any more." -Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge
Quite the opposite actually, the B-1 is a bargain to fly compared to other aircraft, particularly considering its impressive payload and conventional targeting capabilities. It's no wonder it has seen extensive use in recent conflicts.
Now try renormalizing as cost per flight hour per bomb. :D
You see some strange things when looking at aircraft loadouts. Comparing Mark 82 General Purpose 500lb bombs with the Small Diameter Bomb for instance.
The B-1 can lug around 84 Mark 82s or eventually 144 SDBs when integrated, which is about what you might expect.
The F-16C on the other hand, can carry 12 Mark 82s but only 8 SDBs. Why only 8 SDBs when they are lighter and made to be mounted in quad or even 6 packs? Who knows?
At the low end we have the Reaper which can carry 7 bombs for the bargain price of about $680 per bomb per hour. The B-1B is very close at $688 per bomb flight hour. This makes it more of a choice about how you want to distribute your bombs, one fast high capacity unit, or lots of slower but widely distributed units. The B-52 is similar operationally to the B-1B in the role of a conventional bomber but slower, and more expensive coming in at $1366 per bomb flight hour as a function of it's lower capacity and higher operating costs when compared to the B-1B
The B-2 comes in at $2116 per bomb flight hour, which actually compares favorably to the F-15's cost of $3493 per bomb flight hour, until you realize that the B-2 generally flies marathon missions out of Missouri while tactical fighters tend to sortie from close to the theatre. The F-16 is the bargain tactical bomber at $1876 per bomb flight hour.
And coming in at the top, carrying 8 SDBs at $8545 per bomb flight hour or just two JDAMs at $34,181 is the F-22 Raptor.
It will be interesting to see where the F-35 ends up on the scale once weapons integration is completed and it gets some flight hours under its belt. My guess is that it will be in the ballpark of the F-15.
What's the cost of survivability? (is it even a word?)
How many will go out due to unexpected errors, malfunction, etc? How many will be an easy prey? Looks like a no brainer, spread the drones and put few bombers behind on call.
If it was that easy, eh.
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
What's the cost of survivability? (is it even a word?)
How many will go out due to unexpected errors, malfunction, etc? How many will be an easy prey? Looks like a no brainer, spread the drones and put few bombers behind on call.
If it was that easy, eh.
This where you need professionals to make a judgement call.
Drones are generally more vulnerable but also far more expendable than fighters or bombers but it depends on the threat. If MANPADs and ground based cannon are the threat, Drones could have a hard time, where a bomber could loiter up high in complete safety. If integrated air defenses are present, stealth aircraft and low flying drones start looking a lot better than conventional bombers.
Loiter and reaction time are also big factors. Tactical bombers are great for responding quickly to widespread intermittent threats or dashing behind lines to take out specific targets, but suffer from small magazines and limited range. Drones can stay overhead in a specific area all day long, and can be widely dispersed, but are slow to reposition. Bombers can cover a lot of ground and have deep enough magazines to stay on station in high demand areas without running out of ordinance but are more limited in number and can only be in one place at a time.
Lots of tools with different strengths in different scenarios.
While the F-35's exhaust is indeed hot, it isn't substantially hotter than that of the AV-8B, and unlike the MV-22, it isn't aimed downwards in close proximity to the deck for long periods of time. The F-35 generally only rotates the engine downwards for a matter of seconds when taking off or landing. Idling can be done with the engine pointed to the rear like a standard jet.
The flightdeck heating issue has been an embarrassing one for the F-35 program. Early on, it was assured that the heat from the F-35B's massive engine would not require any modifications for amphibious ship operations. Where the AV-8B Harrier could go, the F-35B could go.
This turned out to be a farce. The F-35B's hot exhaust has the capability to not just scorch these ships existing decks, they can melt right through them like a cutting torch, the purpose built USS America included. As a result, intricate structural members have to be added underneath spots seven and nine (F-35Bs will only be able to land on these two spots!) aboard the America, and a new deck surface coating must be added in hopes of keeping the jet's high heat signature at bay.
Basically 2/3 of A-10s hit by missiles were total losses.
Also mentioned was this by GEN Horner:
"The other problem is that the A-10 is vulnerable to hits because its speed is limited. It’s a function of thrust, it’s not a function of anything else. We had a lot of A-10s take a lot of ground fire hits. Quite frankly, we pulled the A-10s back from going up around the Republican Guard and kept them on Iraq’s [less formidable] front-line units. That’s fine if you have a force that allows you to do that. In this case, we had F-16s to go after the Republican Guard. "
Sorry to be jumping around, but I missed this earlier. There is a bit of apples to pears here. Using the A-10 for ground interdiction or strike or whatever the appropriate doctrinal term is, is nice, and shows some versatility. But that isn't the same as CAS. F-16s can certainly perform ground interdiction better, but this mission, while perhaps with higher Air Defense threat, is at the discretion of the interdicting force.
CAS can be discretionary in a larger maneuver war, but where it is often used in small wars, is in emergency conditions where US ground forces are engaged and in some level of distress/inability to maneuver effectively. The AD threat is lower, but the requirement is much higher, and the F-16 is much less suitable than the A-10, from my opinion and pretty much every other participant of this scenario, due to familiarity with mission, duration of mission, superior situational awareness, and a pretty effective cannon for when precision is not applicable.
I'd also be curious how effective the raw statistics break out the difference between a MANPADS missile hit and a larger SAM.
This where you need professionals to make a judgement call.
Drones are generally more vulnerable but also far more expendable than fighters or bombers but it depends on the threat. If MANPADs and ground based cannon are the threat, Drones could have a hard time, where a bomber could loiter up high in complete safety. If integrated air defenses are present, stealth aircraft and low flying drones start looking a lot better than conventional bombers.
Loiter and reaction time are also big factors. Tactical bombers are great for responding quickly to widespread intermittent threats or dashing behind lines to take out specific targets, but suffer from small magazines and limited range. Drones can stay overhead in a specific area all day long, and can be widely dispersed, but are slow to reposition. Bombers can cover a lot of ground and have deep enough magazines to stay on station in high demand areas without running out of ordinance but are more limited in number and can only be in one place at a time.
Lots of tools with different strengths in different scenarios.
The trick is to open the can with a fork ;)
No such thing as a good tax - Churchill
To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.
Not A Big Surprise: The Marines' F-35 Operational Test Was Far From Operational
The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has a damning report on the F-35B’s shipboard “Operational Test” trials that occurred last May. It paints a dismal picture of an aircraft that is so far from being “operationally capable” it’s almost comical at this point. As a result, it proves what many of us already know: the Marines’ declaration of F-35B initial operational capability made this Summer was a farce.
The F-35B’s Operational Test trials aboard the USS Wasp late last May were widely portrayed as a big success and proof that the troubled aircraft had progressed past many of the issues that had plagued it for years. Yet information from this test was tightly controlled and the picture being painted from it seemed eerily rosy. The F-35B appeared to do what it was supposed to, at least for the cameras.
Yet in reality the tests were far from representative of operational conditions, and the jet performed poorly in many key areas and not at all in others.
Highlights from the POGO report include a mission capable rate of 50% among the six aircraft deployed for the test, even though the embarked maintenance crew was loaded with contractors. Additionally, the entire F-35 support base was on high alert to solve any wrongs as fast as possible, including the movement of parts across the country at lightning speed. Several MV-22 Ospreys were even put on high-alert to be ready to support parts runs for the trials, hardly a service that would be available under anything approaching “operational” conditions.
The Pogo report states:
“The Marine Corps and Lockheed Martin anticipated issues of this sort and made special arrangements to support this event. The report notes the Marine Corps placed several MV-22’s on standby to conduct logistics runs for the test. Further, Lockheed Martin had prioritized support for the deployment “very highly.” It positioned contractors at various bases across the country to rapidly move needed parts through the system. This is hardly surprising, since it was in Lockheed Martin’s interests to do everything possible to see that this demonstration went as smoothly as possible.”
Then there were the many other issues that would have been a Mission Kill for an F-35 in combat, including radar, radio, and electro-optical targeting system issues that nobody even attempted to fix during the detachment. As such, during the roughly half the time F-35Bs could fly around, they would not have been capable of partaking in even rudimentary combat missions.
The report elaborates:
The absence of key combat mission systems, since they were either not installed or not cleared for use. Specifically, the nose apertures for the infrared Distributed Aperture System, which provides missile launch warning and situational awareness to pilots, were not installed. Night vision camera use was restricted to elevations above 5,000 feet. And only limited radar modes were available for some of the Block 2B aircraft. Critical warfighting systems like these cannot operate without advanced software which was unavailable at the time of the demonstration. These systems will not be fully integrated into operational aircraft until the block 3F software is ready in 2017 at the earliest. If these systems had been available, they would likely have added additional maintenance burdens.
It concludes:
The USS Wasp operational test, which seems no more than a PR exercise, simply confirmed that beyond the highly publicized questions regarding the F-35’s combat effectiveness, more pressing issues remain about its basic reliability. If the most expensive weapons system in history can’t even get off the ground often enough to train pilots adequately, then all the money spent on it has been wasted.
All this is in addition to the fact that the F-35B is running on software and hardware in some cases that only gives it a fraction of its intended capabilities and weapons options. This means its effectiveness against any sort of robust foe is highly questionable and its ability to provide precision close air support is lacking compared to fighters and attack aircraft currently in the inventory.
Regardless of all of these troubles, and yet more key issues with the aircraft’s systems and durability, the Marines just went right ahead and declared the F-35B operational a few months after the test in question concluded.
A recent report by War Is Boring also shows that the Marines are not alone when it comes to selectively blurring the definition of what is an operational F-35. The piece details how a truthful developmental milestone, the F-35 with full Block 3 software and capabilities, was envisioned to mark the aircraft’s initial operational capability (IOC) with the USAF.
Because this would delay IOC by two years, it was dismissed and an earlier milestone was arbitrarily put in its place. The potential loss of international sales, the damage to the program’s already bruised image, and Congress’s enthusiasm for continuing to purchase a combat aircraft in great numbers that was not yet ready for combat were obvious reasons why this bait and switch maneuver was executed. War Is Boring says:
“The read on Congress from Maj. Gen. Tod Wolters, [from the] Air Force Legislative Liaison Office, was that there was more support overall for an early declaration in [calendar year] ’16 as opposed to sticking to Block 3F with a CY ’18 declaration. These opinions came from the negative connotation with having over 180 F-35A aircraft parked on runways without IOC and also being two years behind the Marines.”
And they conclude:
“To meet a deadline that Congress found acceptable, the Air Force decided to debut F-35s that it knew full well wouldn’t actually be combat-ready in any meaningful sense of the term. In May 2013, the flying branch submitted its F-35 IOC date to Congress and then, according to the history, “began the tense wait to see if the JSF program could fulfill its promises over the next three years.”
It is not just the massive cost overruns, vacant promises and increasing timelines that make the F-35 program so controversial, it is the lack of any sort of honesty or accountability from the top. The endless finagling key definitions, sugar coating of information and shell games with stated capabilities versus real ones are just tiring, not to mention the program’s rebuttals to criticism that are loaded with distracting disinformation. It all adds up to make the F-35 the ultimate poster child for the military industrial complex run amok.
Back to the POGO report. Their conclusion hits home:
“Traditionally, declaring IOC has depended upon completing combat-realistic testing, as was the criteria for the F-22’s IOC declaration in 2005. The Marine Corps admits the “initial” deployments are several years down the road. F-35Bs will not be deployed to Okinawa until 2017 at the earliest, and won’t be deployed on amphibious assault ships until 2018. It’s clear that the F-35B’s IOC declaration does not establish that any necessary combat capabilities have actually been achieved. It simply establishes that the Joint Strike Fighter Program Office and the Marine Corps were doggedly determined to reap the public relations benefits of meeting their artificial IOC deadline—even if in name only—no matter what.”
Sadly, neither the military nor Lockheed can be trusted when it comes to this program. They have proven over and over again that there is little light between one another, and it is clearly apparent that they are willing to say and do virtually anything to produce thousands of these aircraft, regardless of what form they are in when they roll off the production line.
With all this in mind, how can we believe any milestone declaration from the F-35 Program in the future? It is clear that they will continue to write the F-35’s story to fit their needs, regardless of reality. As for their lame attempts to show great progress through manipulating definitions, declaring meaningless triumphs and not acknowledging damning performance data, think about this:
An F-35 was actually built in Europe before an F-35 ever made it to an air show on that continent as was promised years ago.
And finally, I will leave you with these last bits of info to mull over:
It has been eight years, eight months, and 30 days since the F-35A’s first flight.
It has been 15 years, five months, and 21 days since the X-35 first flew.
It took 7 years, 1 months, and 25 days from Kennedy’s challenge to go to the moon to landing on it. How much more time (and money) does the F-35 get?
Punchline: POGO and Tyler Rogan surprised initially operational aircraft have initial operation like capabilities and problems, finds it shocking that extremely complicated aircraft programs don't spring perfect from the bowls of lockmart like Athena from the head of Zeus. Demands military save tax payer money by cancelling stuff that can actually defeat the enemy in the future in favor of older aircraft that will lose cheaply and reliably.
For many who's followed this program, the amount of butthurt circle jerking sophistry coming from those two and the gaggle of other "analysts" on the program is truly nauseating. Suspect the comment section will be amusing.
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