The trick-or-treaters were at the door of Ares HQ Saturday night (do the rotten little ingrates have any idea how long it takes to get those shards of broken lightbulb into an apple?). For a Brit, it's interesting to compare England's Guy Fawkes Night, which commemorates a Jacobean terrorist, with Hallowe'en and the rest of the world's Day of the Dead celebrations - effigies and costumes and children seeking a small offering to propitiate the spirits and avoid misfortune, such as the remarkably dead muskrat that I found in my mailbox a few years ago.
Speaking of the smell of death: About that confident prediction, less than two weeks ago, that the first short take-off, vertical landing JSF, aircraft BF-1, would be at Pax River by the end of last week... I must have missed the Psych! at the end of the sentence.
One missed test deadline can be the result of a lot of individually minor problems. However, the end of the month means that we are close to half-way through the window that the JSF program office identified at AFA - between mid-September and year-end - in which BF-1 and BF-2 were to go to Pax River, BF-1 was to perform VL flight tests, and five other systems development and demonstration aircraft were to fly. None of these goals has been met.
Those five aircraft include AF-1, the first production-standard CTOL aircraft, which rolled out more than ten months ago and as recently as July was due to fly in mid-September. AF-1, 2 and 3 are firmly on the critical path to getting the first two low-rate initial production F-35As to Eglin by next August.
We all know that flight testing and development can be difficult and frustrating - but this is a project whose leaders have been assuring us over and over again that it's all different this time, that modelling and simulation have confined flight test to a validation exercise. The fact that the program doesn't seem able to predict what it's going to do next week surely has to raise some questions as to whether that view is correct.
So, are you suggesting they load AF-1 into an air cannon and launch it into the sky? What is the glide ratio for the F-35? What would be the expected range for the shot? Would they sell enough tickets to pay for enough fixes to get the rest of the test aircraft in the air?
Looks like Bill and Co. are getting an early start on the F-35 bashing this week. Tell me Bill, do you even pretend impartiality anymore or have you thrown pretense out the window with long absent objectivity? If you had A400 rants on here daily it'd be a little easier to think you just like to dog pile on programs that are too slow for your taste. But being that you're "a Brit" who's indicated in the past that you think the success of the F-35 would mean the end of European fighter development, and it also seems to be the only one catching your ire on an almost daily basis, well it's difficult NOT to question your motives. Sure, you'll always have th ELPs and Hordes in your cheering section (whether that's a plus or a minus is debatable) but whatever happened to self-respect and professionalism?
This probably won't mean anything to you Mr.Ferrin but I could hardly care less about the A-400M. Its # of current orders and likely end number of airframes are an order of magnitude less than those of the JSF. Not to mention the number of other genuinely good options out there for transport fleets.
Sferrin: First of all, read this blast from the past: http://tinyurl.com/jsfmatters The impact of A400M on the world scene is tiny compared with JSF. And I can only advise you to get thee to a library and find some of my mid-90s reporting on Eurofighter (during which BAE Systems threatened me and a BBC team with a libel suit) and late-90s reporting on Super Hornet. Finally, I couldn't even start any "F-35 bashing" if the program did not provide me, daily, with new material. I reported the claim that BF-1 would go to Pax before the end of the month. Had they done it, it would have been reported here.
To miss 90% of your scheduled test flights in a year is a good thing.
That means less burnt fuel. And a greener planet.
So thank you Lockheed Martin for saving the planet.
Trick or on-Track?
I would very welcome a clear reasonable explanation about it with technical details. Much better to me than the current disconnected situation.
The impact of A400M on the world scene is tiny compared with JSF.
And I can only advise you to get thee to a library and find some of my mid-90s reporting on Eurofighter (during which BAE Systems threatened me and a BBC team with a libel suit) and late-90s reporting on Super Hornet.
Finally, I couldn't even start any "F-35 bashing" if the program did not provide me, daily, with new material. I reported the claim that BF-1 would go to Pax before the end of the month. Had they done it, it would have been reported here.
Thank goodness there is always the pride of U.S. program management, the 787 to look toward for inspiration.