Re: Other JSF options

Been gone/fairly busy for the past week, so I'm slow getting to this.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" <g_alcala@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:448E52E3.B227491C@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Kevin Brooks wrote:

<snip a bunch>

Apparently it was DoD and the USAF/USN which wanted to cut the F136,
while
the JSF program
office thought that wasa bad idea at this stage (i.e., at least
until
they
know more about whether
the F135 will meet its specs). BTW, the May 29th AvLeak has a good
article on F135 development
and some of the problems they've been having with it.

yeah, and they will no doubt have their share of problems with the
F136
development if it goes through--problems that we will have to pay to
fix
as
part of the development cost.

Entirely possible, but then that's the beauty of capitalist
competition,
isn't it? "Your engine
isn't meeting specs,and is running over budget? Well, better get it up
to
snuff and soon, or we'll
buy from the other guys.

No, no! It is evident from the way this is playing out that should the
F136
prove to be the pig in the mud, then the UK and GE-based politicos over
here
will cry "Foul!" should the USAF try to dump them. This is gonna be a
corporate and international welfare package.

I doubt it. Oh, BTW, the June 5th AvLeak has an article on the F136 and
the
development problems it's been having. Which is to be expected of any
engine,
and which is why I think we need to keep them both going at least until
they
demonstrate their promised performance, reliability, durability, weight
etc.

Oh, boy...you are worried about the P&W engine being able to meet specs, so
a better solution is to toss more money into a competeing program that is
also not meeting specs? Sounds like an odd solution set to me.

Sure beats not having a competing engine, which was the case with the TF30 and
early-on the F100. Are you saying that the competition won't hold both
companies' feet to the fire and deliver a better product sooner? You socialist,
you;-)

Oh, and don't expect us to pay to fix it -- we aren't stuck with you
regardless of how poorly you perform."

Yes, we will be. GE and RR will be comfortable in the smug satisfaction
that
they have the UK govt ready to do their bidding and apply disproportional
(to their measily contribution level) leverage to keep them in the game.
Just as they have already done.

Kind of hard to do so if the engine's a dud and you've got a better
option.

They managed to do so thus far, have they not?

Given that neither engine let alone the airframe is yet in production, and
neither is yet meeting its specs, of course they have (barely). Which is hardly
the same situation as will exist several years from now. Personally, I wish we'd
kept 'Monica' development going too, because I have no doubt it would have
concentrated L-M's mind and eliminated many of the cost overruns and delays, and
I'm damned tired of the services selecting an a/c that is far from being
production representative, only to then have them have to spend another 10 years
modifying it (and usually having to back way off on the spec in the process).
IMO the selection never should have been made between the X-32 and X-35, but
between a YF-32 or YF-35 (I'll ignore nomenclature stupidity). I think fly
before buy is the best policy, just as I would never buy a car without
inspecting and test-driving a representative example first. We really haven't
done that since the LWF fly-off, and even there the a/c were some way short of
production representative.

For every congresscritter trying to keep the pork barrel
going in their district regardless of how the thing works, there will
be
two others holding televised
press conferences and hearings on performance deficiencies and cost
overruns, to show that they're
fulfilling their role as guardians of the public purse and servants of
the
PeeePulll. It may not be
pretty to watch, but it does occasionally do the job.

Nah. The chief-pork-killer himself has already hitched his wagon to the
F136, and he is not likely to flip-flop on it in the future (McCain is
not
known for admitting his errors).

ISTM that McCain has hitched his wagon to the idea that you should
demonstrate
the performance you claim before we throw tons of money at you and limit
our
options, and that it's a good idea to have competition as late as you can,
as it
keeps costs down and performance up. Which is the way it's supposed to
work in
a capitalist system.

McCain has made the F136 his baby, from what I have read. Translated--if it
goes ahead as predicted now, it ain't gonna fail 'cause egg on his face is
something he really detests, no matter how ell deserved it is.

Source for this claim?

<snip>

And make sure the F-35 isn't crippled by having an engine that
doesn't
meet specs, as well as
increase competition and according to the GAO report, lower over-all
program costs (break-even at
the 1,700th a/c).

I tend to side with the guys wearing the uniforms and "walking the
walk"
being the best source for determining where the limited resources are
used

Who are often just as biased because they have some personal investment
in
a program (you were the
one saying how hard it would before Moseley to back out now, because he
would be contradicting a line
taken by his former boss, which he supported. We don't know if Moseley
ever held that view himself,
or if he was just being the loyal subordinate).

Actually, he went beyond the usual call of toeing the line. His comments
were his own, and were not *required* to be offered.

Whether he was in agreement or not, you were sayingthat he'd have a tough
time
taking back what he said previously, which is a personal investment of
prestige
if nothing else.

Just like McCain will be facing when/if keeping the F136 proves to have been
a bad decision, right?

Since I've seen nothing to indicate that McCain has said we must keep the F136
going regardless of its performance, cost or reliability vis a vis the F135, the
situation is hardly the same. If you have such evidence, please feel free to
provide it. McCain wants to keep our options open, while Moseley's statement
was conclusive and definitive. Which do you think would require me to publicly
wipe more egg off my face -- If I said "having now acquired more solid facts on
which to base a decision as to whether we should do 'X' or 'Y', I believe we
should do 'X' rather than 'Y'"; or "What I told you were the indisputable facts
just a year or two ago, a 'slam dunk' to coin a phrase, was all wrong. These
are the new, indisputable facts. Trust me, I know what I'm doing." (for old
fans of "Sledge Hammer")

And the GAO?! Geeze, Guy, you can get those yahoos to come up with
about
any
result you want, and I think you know that.

Unlike many on the NG, I don't find the GAO to be all that biased.
Sure,
they can go in with a
pre-conceived result, but they've got nothing to teach the services in
that line. And unlike the
military they can be asked to analyze a program by members of either
party
(biased for or against),
while the military chain of command lacks that sort of independence. I
have found a few GAO reports
to be junk, but the majority are not, especially when they use the
militaries' own claims and numbers
to refute their arguments.

An old SGM of mine used to say, "Liars figure, and figures lie". The GAO
is,
IMO, expert in that arcane field of endeavor.

And the services aren't??!!

Sure they can be. But your source here was the GAO, which does not have a
great reputation (beyond yourself, if the results of the GAO discussion in
this NG are counted) for lack of bias or accuracy in its pronouncements. As
another poster noted, the GAO has rarely seen a program it did not try to
derail or discredit--the M1 Abrams, the M2 Bradley, etc., being among the
very successful programs it once tried to quash.

More often, what I've seen them do is offer up options that the services were
unwilling to consider themselves for parochial reasons. Would we have won DS
with M60A3s instead of M1s? Sure we would. Does that mean that would have been
the best way to go? That's another matter. As another example where I've found
the GAO's case more persuasive than the military's, I've always agreed with the
GAO that the F-18E/F was a bad bargain compared to the numerous alternatives we
had. In addition, it was a pure snow job by the military on the members of
Congress less cognizant of military matters and development/procurement rules,
by asking for and getting a Milestone IV decision (modification of an existing
program) instead of the Milestone II decision (new program) it should have had.
The Marines are now doing much the same thing again with the CH-53K, attempting
to pass off an a/c with an entirely new, wider fuselage as well as new rotors,
transmission, drivetrain, engines and cockpit as just a development of an
existing airframe -- to the uneducated eye it's going to look about the same as
the CH-53E, but it's development, like the F-18E/F's, is going to take as long
or longer and cost as much or more as the original a/c's,in constant dollars.

<snip>

So, assuming USAF goes down to 1,000-1,200, engine production just for
the
definite customers is
1,830 - 2,030 plus spares, before you add in any of the other export
customers (Spain, Italy,
Australia being pretty certain, with lots of other likely buyers) or
possible use on other
platforms. Last time I checked L-M was still claiming a potential
demand
for 3,000 a/c, although
AFAIC that's pie-in-the-sky. 2,000-2,500 seems more probable. But I
doubt anyone other than the
most giddy optimist at GD would have predicted 4,000+ for the F-16 back
in
1978, so who knows. The
pace of UCAV development and acceptance will likely be the determining
factor.

Uhmm... the USN has also been known to make noises about final production
numbers, and the Brits threatened to pull out altogether. 1700 is not
assured as of yet, though I think it likely that we will acheive that
number.

Last I checked 1,700 included revised USN/USMC numbers.

But according to your own GAO, it very possibly never even enter into
production at all.

that's a bitgarbled so I'mnot sure what you're referring to, the a/c or the
engine(s)?

But paradoxically, they argue that we shoudl dump money
that we want to spend elsewhere into the development of a second engine for
a program that they say should not receive a production decision...odd,
that.

They say it's not ready to receive a production decision yet, and clearly it
isn't. We've done far too much concurrent development and production over the
years, often because the military wants so badly to have a program (which
they've become institutionally invested in) that they try and put the a/c into
production before it's ready so that the momentum will be too great to stop it,
and they can then go back to Congress later for the money to fix the problems
which they already knew about but were afraid to mention. You know I'm not a
member of the hysterical anti-MV-22 brigade, but the Marines tried to do just
this back in 2000-2001. That the squadron commander was caught on tape saying
as much and telling his men to falsify the maintenance records for the good of
the service was the only unusual aspect of the matter.

<snip some of Brits ripping us off>

Gee, and that was my favorite part... I wonder if I can find somebody who
will sell me full rights to my next home for only 6% of the purchase
cost,
and then refund that committment twice over? Heck of a deal the UK got
there...

Worth it IMO.

We will have to disagree on that one. The contribution of a paltry share of
the R&D costs (which is to be repaid twice over), and the purchase of a
measily 150 aircraft, at what amounts to US taxpayer cost, by the UK does
not exactly merit "equal partner" status in my book. I recommend you steer
away from private enterprise if you think otherwise, 'cause your "partners"
will skin you like rabbit... :-)

Seeing as how the UK (and maybe the Aussies)are just about the only military
ally we have that can actually field a force of comparable capability (if not
size), and they're the only ones likely to be with us in many cases, _giving_
them the a/c gratis would likely still be a net gain for us. Or do you happen
to think Lend-Lease was a bad deal for the US?

<snip>

Playing in them, no, but being deeply concerned by the outcome, yes.
Which do you think is likely
to cost the US taxpayer more; ponying up a couple billion for the
F-35/F136, or having a weakened
Blair or a future British PM decide to pull British troops out of
Basra/southern Iraq (and/or
Afghanistan), forcing us to take those jobs on as well?

Hey, Spain did it and we survived. Are you actually equating the F136
with
continued British participation in OIF and OEF?

Kevin, are you actually equating Spanish participation in OIF with the
Brits?

No, not really. And you should not equate the F136 deal with continued
Brit
participation in OIF.

As I've stated elsewhere, I'm not.

In reality you have. You have repeatedly argued that we should follow
through with F136 to help Blair remain in office and ensure the UK's
continued support with OIF. I suspect you did not really mean it when you
did so, though. :-)

You suspect wrong, then;-) But hey, I'm not the only one. Oddly enough, well
after we started this dialogue (honest) I found a book in the library titled
"American Ally: Tony Blair and the War on Terror", 2006 by Con Coughlin. He
seems to have talked to numerous senior people in both governments, both on and
off-record, including Blair at some length. Prior to OIF, there was considerable
concern that Blair's government might not survive if he tried to go to war
without a second UNSC resolution (when we were unable to get 9 votes, before the
French let us off the hook by saying they'd veto it regardless):

"Bush talked to Blair about the various voting permutations at the Security
Council, which would enable them to secure the necessary nine-man [Sic.]
majority they needed for the new resolution. Bush was deeply concerned that if
Blair went down, he would not only lose a key ally, he would get the blame. And
the overthrow of one of Saddam's leading opponents would strengthen the Iraqi
dictator's hand."

"'If they don't vote with us,' said Bush, 'what I want to say to you is that my
last choice is to have your government go down. We don't want that to happen in
any circumstances. I really mean that.' By this time, more than 35,000
Brtitish troops were assembled across the southern Iraqi border, ready to join
an American-led invasion force. If it would help, Bush said, he would let Blair
drop out of the coalition and they would find some other way for Britain to
participate. But Blair would have none of it."

"'I said I'm with you, I mean it.' Blair insisted. Bush continued to press the
premier, suggesting they could think of another role for the British forces, 'a
second wave, peacekeepers or something. I would rather go alone than have your
government fall.' Bush said he really meant it that it would be OK for Blair to
opt out. 'You can bank on that.'"

"'I know you do,' Blair said, and I appreciate that. I absolutely believe in
this too. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's good of you to say that. But
I'm there to the very end.'"*

*Guardian, April 26, 2003. Now, considering the source we can have our doubts
as to its accuracy. So here's a quote immediately following the above:

"'We were really taken aback by the strength of Blair's committment to this,'
said a close Bush aide. 'He did the right thing against tremendous pressure at
home."*

*Quoted from Hans Blix' "Plan of Attack". Blair did survive the Commons vote,
although 139 Labour MPs voted against him and 40 abstained.


I consider anything we can do which might
help keep the current UK leadership in power worthwhile, but keeping the
F136
development going at least until the F135 demonstrates maturity and that
it can
meet its specs is a no-brainer to me.

Lessee, that means you are saying we should continue to pour more money into
a less mature second project that does not meet specs instead of maybe using
the same money to ensure the first more mature project can indeed meet
specs, all while trying to stay within a fixed budget...not the best of
solutions IMO.

Competition, competition, competition. What's P&W's incentive to get things
fixed quickly and keep costs down if they know they're the only game in town?
We've been down that road before with them.

Given that its timeline is a couple of
years behind the F135's it benefits from being able to modify the basic
design
to meet the needs of the F-35 as actually built, while the F135 was frozen
earlier when the F-35 design still had to undergo some fairly major
changes.

Again, the idea that a less amture project that already is not meeting specs
is better than a maore mature project that also needs to meet thos same
specs?

Neither is currently meeting specs, although both companies claim the problems
are minor and easily fixable (they would), and the airframe is also behind
schedule and over-budget. We've already denied ourselves an option with the
latter, with theprogram running about 2 years behind schedule, so why would we
wish to repeat that with the engines?

<snip>

I figure the F-35 and similar help we
can give the current UK government (like the US101), if it helps
keep
them
in power, is cheap at
the price.

Sounds a bit like blackmail to me. I don't want the UK support if it
is
that
mercenary in nature (and I don't think it is).

If it were primarily mercenary in nature, they would have demanded far
more from us. Do you remember
how much Turkey wanted from us just to let us bring the 4th ID in
through
there? It was a lot more
than a measly couple of billion.

It's not a question of blackmail, it's a question of Britain being a
democracy whose elected leaders
are responsible, first and foremost, for the interests of the people
who
elected them.

Ta-da! And so should ours! Now you may LIKE subsidizing UK industry out
of
your tax payments, but I am not real fond of that approach. You keep
dancing
away from the cold hard facts--they are contributing some 6 whopping
percent, they plan to recoup at least twice what they invest in direct
contracts, and you think we OWE them more??!

Kevin, we're currently spending $8 billion a month on our military in
Iraq.

Whoopie, that has little to do with the JSF program, nor should it.

But it has a whole lot to do with how much it would cost us to replace the Brits
in southern Iraq, seeing as how we've currently got 2 or 3 division equivalents
in the country. Let's low-ball it and call it $1 billion/month.

We
also have troops in Afghanistan, and the UK, Canadians and a few others
are
taking over some of their work, allowing us to decrease our presence there
by
3,000 or so. The UK has a two-brigade division in southern Iraq, and has
had it
there for three years. How much do you think it will cost us to pick up
the
British mission in southern Iraq and Afghanistan if they decide to pull
out?

You have just come full circle back to the mercenary view. IMO, if they
folks of those nations feel the missions are necessary and worth the costs,
they should (and have, and do) contribute to the effort. Not becuase the US
is going to assure them a nice, fat paycheck for doing so. We have to resort
to the latter measure in some cases with other nations, but that does not
mean we should have to do it with our closeest allies. If I were a UKan or a
Canuckian reading your views on the subject, I'd be rather peeved that
anyone should even suggest we were supporting the efforts for "filthy
lucre". If they pulled out over the lack of the F136, or even over their
failure to continue with the JSF program at large, then I would say we would
have lost damned little--luckily, I don't believe those nations to be as
shallow in thier outlooks as you seem to think.

You might want to check how the folk of the UK and most of the ruling party feel
about the mission's necessity and whether it's worth the costs -- see the vote
total above, for their attitude _prior_ to the war, never mind their current
feelings. The Brit's are still there because Blair is still in charge -- Brown
hasn't invested his personal and political capital in the war, and it's unclear
to me whether he believes it's necessary; Blair has and does.

Blair has
been with us in the Balkans (ahead of us, in that case),

Ah, yes, the Balkans... The local where the EC weenie made the public
statement that we Yanks should keep our noses out of that tent, that the
Euros would handle it all quite niclely themselves, thank you...before
switching to the "Where the heck is the bloody US!" cry later. We are
just
now getting loose of that tarbaby...

I'm not about to defend the EC about their tardiness inYugoslavia (or
ours,
either).

LOL! Our tardiness was *encouraged* by the Euros, or have you so soon
forgotten that fact?

And was happily accepted by us, because most of the Clinton adminstration from
the president on down (other than Madeleine Albright) wanted no part of it.
Blair was way out front of us on this, and was continually pushing Clinton to be
more aggressive with the Serbs and not rule out ground troops, because Blair
believed it was evil and must be stopped. Which is the reason he and GWB get
along so well (and why Blair never fully trusted Clinton again after OEF).
Whether you agree or disagree with their views, both men are willing to do what
is unpopular when they are morally certain that it's right.

The fact is that Blair was ready to do something effective, including
ground troops, before we were.

Heard that saw before, and unfortunately it does not stand up to actual
reason or fact. This is one of those few cases where I can say, "I was
there." We were conducting a V Corps Warfighter exercise at Grafoenwehr in
Germany at the time, and the 1st ID(M) was pulled from the exercise before
it even got actually going to prepare for a "real world" committment, with V
Corps itself being ready to dump the exercise and paying a lot more
attention to real world events than what was going on in the sim centers and
CP's. It was rather easy for Blair to beat the drum in that case, knowing
that there was going to be no ground force committment (period) unless the
US was part of it and facilitated it.

Actually, he seems to have been almost willing to go it alone. He was prepared
to put over 50,000 ground troops (i.e. over half the British Army) into the
ground campaign, and he (along with Albright) was pushing the Pentagon and
Clinton to rescind their comments about not using ground troops, just as he had
already. It's instructive that the Neocons (and GWB) were the ones saying much
the same thing at the time, albeit from outside. Blair managed to get Clinton
onboard, and together they worked out compromise language to keep NATO from
publicly splintering over the issue.

Afghanistan and Iraq, either because he
really believes that it's the right thing to do; or else because he
believes keeping the special
relationship going is important enough to support the US position even
when he isn't fully convinced
of its wisdom, and he has risked his personal popularity to do so.
Name
_any_ other allied leader
who has been willing (and able) to do so against such overwhelming
domestic opposition, over such a
long period of time.

The funny thing is that is is still not our place to set policy to favor
any
individual leader of the UK government, now is it?

Oh, come, let's not pretend we live in an utopian fantasy world. We've
set
policy to favor/disfavor any number of governments/candidates, up to and
including organizing their overthrow when it suits us. For a democratic
ally
like the UK our favoritism should be less obvious and less intrusive
because we
still have to be on reasonablygood terms with the opposition if 'our'
candidate
loses, but to pretend that favoritism doesn't exist is naive.

I believe you greatly exaggerate the situation. We have no business sticking
our noses under their political tent, just as they have no business doing so
under ours. And largely the two governments have refrained from doing so.

See conversation between Bush and Blair above. If that doesn't constitute
favoritism in your book, then we have very different definitions of the word.

Let the Brits sort out their

own politics. You could just as well end up with bowing to them on the
F136
and then seeing Blair get the boot anywho...which would leave your
argument
where?

Still having the F136, which IMO is all to the good.

I am not going to be hiring you to prepare out taxes...you are a bit free
with my money, IMO. :-)

This year, maybe, but think of it as an IRA--the payoff's several years
down the
road.

But your GAO refuses to assure any such payoff,

Assure, of course not, which just shows that they're more honest than the
military and the contractors are. High-end development is a crapshoot;
guaranteeing performance is ridiculous in most cases, unless you set the bar low
enough (as the commercial carriers do) that the companies can be virtually
certain they can meet it (and be prepared to pay penalties if they don't). Even
they can get it badly wrong sometimes, as the Convair 880/990, Concorde and to a
considerable extent the A380 have shown. Given a realistic spec, the military
should be able to meet most or all the threshold requirements, with the
objectives being the "boy, wouldn't it be neat if" ones. But far too often they
fall well short of the threshold requirements, often leading to semi-clandestine
re-writing of the spec so that they can claim that everything is going just
peachy.

and furhter thinks that
tossing money needed elsewhere at a less mature project that does not meet
specs is better than tossing it at a more mature one that by all c=accounts
will meet those specs well before the former does.

Assuming all goes well, as the military and contractor assures us it will, and
they've never been hopelessly optimistic/wrong before.

<snip much HV-22 vs. MH-60>

gotta stick with my earlier assessment that the Navy is keeping its
options
open as to buying the HV (when the bad publicity wanes after the USMC
has
them in operation a couple of years, you might very well see that HV
procurment pop back into the active budget item list).

I certainly hope so, but short of a major CSAR failure how are they
going
to justify that buy just a
few years down the road after having spent all that money buying MH-60s
for the Specops/CSAR
missions, not to mention all the training time?

The great thing about the MH-60's is that they are capable of being used
in
other roles by the USN, not to mention that the procurment of another
tool
for the CSAR toolbox does not mean that they have to dump all of the
Seahawks.

They certainly need an airframe to replace the UH-46s for VERTREP, and
that's a
job that no one in their right mind would use a tiltrotor for.

They have been buying CH-60's already for that role, IIRC. Another way that
the MH-60's surplus to the future CSAR role could be reused.

If I haven't completely lost track of all the re-designations, the CH-60S became
the MH-60S, which is to say they're one and the same. Using the Blackhawk
tailwheel is all well and good for the CSAR/Specops role on land sites, but I'm
less enthused about it for VOD or forward deployment onto FFG/DDG/CG decks.
Apparently, regular Blackhawks have a tough time landing on them in other than
ideal weather/sea conditions.

Guy

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