The F-35, More Than Just a Fighter
—John A. Tirpak 3/11/2016
Critics have to stop thinking of the F-35 as merely the new fighter that replaces the worn-out 1980s-vintage F-16, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said Wednesday. Speaking at an AFA Mitchell Institute event, Work said the F-35 is “not a fighter. It is a ‘BN-35,’ a Battle Network-35. It is a sensor computer node in the distributed campaign battle network that causes the decisions of the pilots to be so much better than [that of] the adversary and also provides enormous benefit to the battle network” by distributing vast amounts of information to the joint force.
F-35A IOC Creeping Right
—John A. Tirpak 3/11/2016
An August declaration of initial operational capability for the F-35A fighter with the Air Force is becoming less likely, according to comments made by Joint Strike Fighter program manager Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan. Bogdan said two things are putting August IOC at risk. One is the final 3i software build, and the other is with the Autonomic Logistics Information System, or ALIS, he said during a McAleese and Associates seminar in Washington Thursday. Right now, “we’re probably 40-60 days” behind, Bogdan said. “That puts you in the September-October timeframe, and the US Air Force has said anytime between August and December is okay for IOC, so I do not see the threshold date of December at risk at all. But for my team, we’re still looking at 1 August.” The problem with ALIS is that the next increment—required for USAF IOC—requires an update that tracks the life of certain parts that get swapped from one jet to another. “Both systems,” Bogdan told reporters afterwards, referring to the logistics systems of Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney, “are proving to be really difficult in connecting with ALIS. That’s where the risk is in ALIS.” The shift requires some “serious changes to Lockheed’s … system.”
F-35 Milestones Loom
—John A. Tirpak 3/11/2016
Besides Air Force initial operational capability, two other big milestones are looming for the F-35, program executive officer Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan said. Bogdan said he’s hoping for a “handshake deal” on Lot 9 production “by the end of the month,” he told reporters Thursday at a McAleese and Associates seminar in Washington, D.C. He’s negotiating Lot 9 and 10 simultaneously, “and that’s not easy,” he said. Together, they represent $16 billion of work, and because Lot 10 is “a bigger quantity of airplanes, it’s more money” and “some of the costs need to be investigated” more closely. “We’re making sure we know every cost, on every line, of every one of those proposals,” he said. He’s also meeting with all the partners at the end of March to “validate” what will be in Block IV: the first tranche of updates after the all-service 3F base level of capabilities. He expects to send requirements to the Air Force and Joint Requirements Oversight Committees shortly thereafter. “When it comes out at the other end of the JROC in the spring/summer timeframe, we’ll be able to share with everybody what follow-on modernization looks like for the F-35,” he said. Not all partners will get what they want in Block IV, he added, because the weapons they want to integrate may not be mature enough at that point. To them he’ll have to say, “I know when you want it, but this is when it’s going to happen.”
As for how early the simulator is, I already explained why that's irrelevant. You're more than welcomed to deconstruct my reasoning with logic.
