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Updated: Sun Aug 29 16:43:38 UTC 2010
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APA NOTAMS ISSN 1836-7135
F-35A JSF: Not Even
Second Place...
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Air Power
Australia - Australia's Independent Defence Think Tank
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Air Power Australia NOTAM
13th
February,
2010
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Peter Goon, BEng (Mech), FTE
(USNTPS),
Head of Test and Evaluation, Air Power
Australia
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| Contacts: |
Peter
Goon
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Carlo
Kopp
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Mob:
0419-806-476 |
Mob:
0437-478-224
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(Imagery via WhiteHouse.gov, DVIC, Sukhoi
JSC).
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In his address to the Nation, the US Forces Commander in
Chief
declared:
“Well
I do not accept second-place for the United States of America.”
State of the Union
Address,
January 2010
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When it comes to America's defense policy and her ability to maintain
air superiority if not air dominance, the US Secretary of Defense has
obviously not read the memo. Thus, the challenges for this
Presidential declaration of intent are twofold.
Firstly, the
current anti-access and area denial capabilities of non-American
origin that already exist in the marketplace will relegate the United
States of America to second place in the air power stakes.
Machines
like the Russian
Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker1,
which
is specifically intended for export and is not ‘your Father’s
Flanker’, assure this outcome, particularly when interoperating with
the contemporary integrated air defense systems (IADS), equipped with
S-300PMU2 Favorit / S-400 Triumf Surface to Air Missiles.
Secondly, with
America
becoming its own peer threat2
through naive if not ill considered and misled decisions like
shutting down F-22A Raptor production at 187 aircraft, and putting all
of its
tactical air needs into one basket - the
just so flawed JSF Program3
– then not accepting second place becomes a logic euphemism for
saying that third and fourth place, or no place at all, are okay.
As
to why the term JSF actually stands for ‘just-so-flawed’
and ‘just-so-failed’, one only has to study the form guide
to see the knobble-ing by artisans of 'a
total indifference to reality'4
at work and how the
teachings of conventional wisdom5
have been ignored.
For instance, the JSF has about as much
chance of being a Fifth Generation Fighter6
as the present Commander in Chief has of becoming the 46th President
of the United States of America. Just as the US Constitution and US
Law preclude the latter, there are the Laws of Engineering, Physics,
Commerce and Common Sense that prohibit the JSF from ever being
anything other than the misadventure it is.
This misadventure
is now replete with spiraling cost increases, the figures looking
like international telephone numbers on a cost base that resembles
the galactic equivalent thereof; with almost weekly announcements of
further schedule delays in plans that seem to be forever changing;
and, failures to deliver on promises, particularly those marketed to
the Australian people by senior US and Australian defense officials
back in 2001/02.
Just who was it who said the JSF was
affordable at “around forty million dollars per
aircraft”?
However, these traits of misadventure are all now
moot and for one simple, undeniable and self evident fact.
The
advent of the Russian
PAK-FA T-507
, the next true Fifth Generation Fighter, designed specifically to
occupy the same territory as the F-22A Raptor and its far less
capable siblings, the JSFs, has set in stone what many believe was
achieved with the coming of its predecessor, the Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker.
That
is, the JSF has now been made totally irrelevant, strategically as
well as tactically, and will not be competitive, either in the air or
in the marketplace.
The long evolving design pedigree of the
PAK-FA T-50 has resulted in an aircraft that will be able to do
things that no Western design is capable of doing. This is a game
changer, a sure fire certainty in the air power stakes.
The
only American aircraft that has any credible chance of being made to
be competitive is the F-22A Raptor.
However, that chap who has
yet to read the memo, has yet to also realize the error of his ways,
though the fog would appear to be lifting and the painful truth that
comes from realizing you have been duped is starting to make its
presence felt.
Now, the simple question is: Which would be
the more costly economically as well as politically – defending the
fact that a mistake has been made and needs to be corrected, quickly,
that is, “evidence based policy making” as our Prime Minister is
apt to say; or, trying to defend your nation with something that
can’t even make it to first base, let alone into second place?
Air
Power Australia is built on the great Australian heritage of punching
above one’s weight while looking out and caring for one’s friends
(a.k.a. “mate-ship”) and the earnest Australian belief in ‘a
fair go’, as well as calling things as we see them, a.k.a. ‘straight
talking’.
In keeping with these traditions, everyone should have the chance to
admit their mistakes; then given the opportunity to fix them.
So
it should be for the US Secretary of Defence and the just so flawed
JSF Program. However, if Bob Gates does not have the wisdom and grit
to do what is right and what is best, then the Commander-in-Chief
should take over stewardship of this misadventure and scratch this
knobbled and hobbled nag and all the rent seeking jockeys and punters
and dopers that have sat astride it for so long.
As the Hon
Robert
Gates said recently when he sacked the very
honest, honorable and straight talking MajGen David ‘Duncan’
Heinz, “. . when things go wrong,
people will be held
accountable”.
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Air
Power Australia Website - http://www.ausairpower.net/
Air Power Australia Research and
Analysis - http://www.ausairpower.net/research.html
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