Another F-35 Weakness Confirmed

It's hard to get an accurate critique of the F-35's shortcomings from its maker, Lockheed Martin, or from its key customer, the United States Air Force. They spare no effort to gloss over problems with this worrisome warplane but, bit by bit, information does emerge.

Aviation Week reports that the USAF, which is still years away from going operational with the F-35, is already looking to trim spending to free up money for the 35's replacement. Why? Well, there are plenty of reasons but the latest to emerge is the admission that Lockheed's stealth bomb truck is short where it matters - on its payload capacity.

[Air Combat Command chief, General Mike] Hostage acknowledges that the “magazine” for today’s fifth-generation fighters-—the F-22 and, eventually, the F-35—is shallow. Each can carry only a maximum of eight ground-attack Small-Diameter Bombs. Physics limits magazine options for these aircraft, as the stealthy design requires small internal weapons bays.

It sounds as though Lockheed's vaunted "Fifth Generation" F-35 might face an unexpectedly truncated lifespan. It's successor will be designed to field much more firepower and, presumably, the sort of counter-stealth technology the Russians and Chinese have under development.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

U.S. Military Takes Steps to Ensure There'll Never Be Another Disaster Like the F-35

As far as the US military is concerned, the F-35 has broken the bank. With the American people on the hook for what is estimated to be up to 1.5-trillion greenbacks for a warplane, a gimmicky bomb truck, that keeps failing to live up to expectations, the military is determined to see that something like the F-35 fiasco never happens again.

A new US Air Force report, "...paints a future of the Air Force that resembles an innovative 21st Century company as opposed to a traditional fighting force. The document says that it's now impossible for the United States to build a strategy advantage with large, expensive programs that take years — in the case of the F-35, 14 years and counting to complete.

'"We believe rapid change is the new norm and has serious implications for the Air Force," the document states.' The pace at which disruptive technologies may appear and proliferate will result in operational advantages that are increasingly short-lived. Dynamic and increasingly frequent shifts in the geopolitical power balance will have significant implications for basing, posture, and partner capabilities that may favor flexibility over footprint.'"

The F-35 isn't mentioned by name in the forecast, but the program's greasy fingerprints are all over it. The Air Force is apparently concerned that it is pricing itself out of the weapons market because it is spending so much time and money on large programs.

"Large, complex programs with industrial-era development cycles measured in decades may become obsolete before they reach full-rate production," the authors added.

"Operational advantages that are increasingly short-lived." That's Air Force code for the F-35's supposed stealth invincibility. The very adversaries for which the F-35 is said to be needed have already knocked the snot out of the stealth threat. They know its weaknesses and they've developed sensors, weapons and tactics to defeat it. What's more, they're already fielding their own stealth fighters, warplanes the F-35 was never designed to combat. Even Israeli defence planners gave America's stealth advantage a mere 5-year shelf life.

Return of the Dogfighter

The July 7 edition of Aviation Week focuses on a new emphasis on air-to-air combat capability instead of the air-to-ground focus that western nations have had for the last couple of decades. The shift is the result of Russia's intervention in Ukraine and its overall superiority in air combat capability.

Bomb trucks, like the glorified F-35, are great when you're taking out ground targets or blowing up wedding parties disguised as insurgents but they're seriously compromised against a state of the art fighter.

The F-35 is even more compromised because, unlike leading multi-role fighter-bombers on the market, it lacks super cruise. That means it can only go fast in fuel-guzzling afterburner. This is a huge disadvantage when you're trying to intercept a distant target and an even huger disadvantage when you're trying to evade pursuers. This is what caused the RAND Corporation to conclude that the F-35 won't out turn, out climb or out run its potential adversaries.

But the F-35 has stealth cloaking, right? Sort of but it's only frontal aspect stealth. Enemies approaching from the front will have a harder time finding you. That does not apply, however, to fighters scanning you from the sides, above or below, or from behind. They can see you just fine. So, in the turning, climbing, diving world of air-to-air combat, the F-35's strength is gone and its weaknesses shine through.

Will the CF-35, as the USAF warns, be obsolete before it ever appears in a Canadian hangar? Yes, quite possibly. Will it remain a mediocre warplane with degraded performance? Likely. Will that be enough to make Harper steer clear of it and find something more suitable to Canada's actual needs? Hell no. Buying the F-35 is a political decision. It's American politics that has kept it on life support for so long. Canada's military wants a nice pat on the head from their American big brothers and that means flying American hardware. That means the F-35. Harper too wants to remain a member in good standing of America's aerial foreign legion. The Brits are in. Australia's in. America's in (over its head). We're in. It's what we do.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

An F-35 Update From The Mound Of Sound

The Mound of Sound sent along this note, followed by his guest post on the F-35:

I thought an update on the F-35 would be appropriate after reading Bill Sweetman’s latest piece in Aviation Week. He writes that this warplane’s Canadian backers are desperate to convince us that we don’t need to put the F-35 through an actual competition.

Canadian supporters of the F-35 marginally stealthy, light attack bomber are so convinced that the F-35 would trounce its rivals in an actual, head-to-head competition that they argue fiercely we should have no such competition.

Aviation Week says we're being conned.

F-35 backers point to various foreign orders as proof that the Lockheed bomber is a world-beater but the truth is that the Joint Strike Fighter has never flown against the other aircraft on the market. Why not? Partly because the problem-plagued warplane is so far behind schedule. Partly because it can't out-turn, out-climb, outrun or out-distance its opposition. What paltry advantage it may eke out in stealth is more than offset by its lack of the Holy Grail of aerial combat, Supercruise - the range-extending ability to achieve sustained, supersonic speeds without fuel-guzzling afterburner.

Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman discussed the F-35's mythical stealth in an article entitled, "Smoke and Mirrors":

To suggest that the F-35 is VHF-stealthy is like arguing that the sky is not blue - literally, because both involve the same phenomenon. The late-Victorian physicist Lord Rayleigh gave his name to the way that electromagnetic radiation is scattered by objects that are smaller than its wavelength. This applies to the particles in the air that scatter sunlight, and aircraft stabilizers and wingtips that are about the same meter-class size as VHF waves.

The counter-stealth attributes of VHF ...were known at the dawn of stealth, in 1983, when MIT's Lincoln Laboratory ordered a 150-ft.-wide radar to emulate Russia's P-14 Oborona VHF early warning system. Lockheed Martin's Fort Worth division should know about that radar - they built it.

VHF-stealth starts with removing the target's tails, as on the B-2, but we did not know how to do that on a supersonic, agile airplane, when the (F-35) specifications were written.

Sweetman adds that the threats of the mid-90s that the F-35 was designed to thwart are, like the F-35 itself, a thing of the past.

The threats of the late 2010s will be qualitatively different. Old VHF radars could be dealt with by breaking the kill chain between detection and tracking: They did not provide good enough cueing to put analog, mechanically scanned tracking radars on to the target. Active, electronically scanned array (AESA), high-power VHF radars and decimeter- and centimeter-wave trackers are more tenacious foes.

We would do well to remember that America did not invent stealth technology. The mathematical formulae for angles and ratios were the brainchild of a Russian mathematician. American defence experts had the paper translated and they were off to the stealth races. The point is that stealth is not some magical technology as we're often given to believe. There are no 'invisible' airplanes and never will be. What that means is that, in evaluating warplanes, stealth should be given its due but no more, and we cannot overlook sacrifices it requires in cost and performance. When it comes to the F-35, you're shelling out a lot and giving up a lot for the sake of a far less than invincible technology.

Conservative And F-35 Myths

I have written numerous past posts both on the F-35 jets and the Minister of Incompetence who presides over the file in Canada, Peter MacKay. Despite the fact that the aircraft has had problems from almost the beginning, the myth of its superiority and the myth that it would cost our government $75 million dollars each persisted long after compelling evidence was adduced to disprove both.

Although it looks impressive, as the following short video illustrates, the accompanying story quite succinctly inters those two aforementioned falsehoods, along with the big whopper that somehow permeates the brains of the ideologues, i.e. the myth of Harper Conservative fiscal and administrative competence.

They Still Walk Among Us

I have always felt a deep, abiding respect and affection for people of integrity. During my career as an English teacher, I took special delight in teaching plays like Arthur Miller's The Crucible and Robert Bolt's Man For All Seasons, which told stories of real-life people who made the ultimate sacrifice to stay true to themselves and their beliefs.

Happily, those with integrity are not confined to either the history or literary pages. They still walk among us. People like Munir Sheikh, the former head of Statistics Canada who resigned his post rather than have his name, reputation and work brought down into the slime by the Harper regime. People like Nelson Mandela, who, rather than grasping at early release from prison in exchange for renouncing the African National Congress, served 27 years in prison and later became both the president and moral leader of South Africa.

People like Kevin Page.

Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer about whom I have written several times on this blog, will be completing his mandate and leaving office on March 25, no doubt much to the relief of the Harper regime, which has been persistently reminded of its fiscal ineptitude, lies, and manipulation of public information by his indefatigable quest for truth and accountability. The F-35 fighter jet debacle is perhaps one of the most obvious examples of the above litany of Harper shortcomings, and a steady target of the PBO, but not the last.

The Star's Tim Harper has a profile of the self-effacing Page in today's edition that is well-worth reading. As well, this editorial in the Montreal Gazetter, this piece in The Star, and this article from Macleans are also well-worth perusal.

For the sake of our national psyche, I believe it is incumbent upon us to honor heroes while they still walk among us.

The MacKay Mission

I really have nothing new to add to the sad spectacle of ministerial incompetence epitomized by Defense Minister Peter MacKay, whose ongoing mission and primary responsibilibilty seems to be never admitting to error or apologizing. However, the Star's Tim Harper does have some thoughts on the reasons for his intransigence in today's column:

For his part, MacKay has adopted the warrior stance of the men and women he represents in his ministry. No surrender, no weakness.

In politics, an apology is seen as a sign of weakness, a hole to be exploited by your opponents and, in MacKay’s case, it is far better to endure humiliation than to utter a mea culpa after more than two years of obfuscation, lowballing and attacks on the patriotism of anyone criticizing the F-35 fighter jet procurement program.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for his reticence lies in what an admission of error would really mean:

... it would cut to the core of the Conservative brand — its financial rectitude — and dredge up the charges that the government deceived the public during the 2011 election campaign.

Harper goes on to detail the internal humiliation that this proud soldier of the No Apologies PMO has had to endure:

He had his toys taken away. After the auditor-general’s report, the government created a fighter jet secretariat and handed the file to Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose.

He had to sit, mute, in the Commons while Liberals brayed for his resignation and surrogates answered for him.

His increasingly chippy parliamentary secretary, Chris Alexander, has an ongoing starring role in political talk shows trying to explain this failed process for MacKay.

He had to endure those Top Gun images, played on an endless loop, of him strapped in the cockpit in 2010.

All doubtlessly hurtful to Central Nova's favourite son.

I find myself curiously unmoved by his plight.

A No-Cut Clause for Peter MacKay?

Readers of this blog may be aware that I am no fan of Harper Defence Minister Peter MacKay. The breadth of his ineptitude is stunning, and the concept of ministerial responsibility seems foreign both to him and his boss. Countless times he has proven to be an embarrassment, not only to Canadians in general, but undoubtedly also to the government he serves.

Yet like a kind of demonic Energizer Bunny, he keeps on going and going and going.

I have a theory.

Despite my depth of cynicism about our politicians, I am normally loathe to indulge in conspiracy speculations; however, McKay's long tenure as Canada's Defense Minister, his widely-demonstrated incompetence notwithstanding, has got me wondering.

First a little history. People may recall that MacKay became the last leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003, having secured the position on the final ballot after making a deal with rival David Orchard never to merge the party with the Canadian Alliance Party.

Well, of course MacKay quickly betrayed both his undertaking and the Progressive Conservative Party, and the rest, as they say, is history. Yet I cannot help but wonder whether the quid pro quo for this betrayal was conferring upon the unprincipled MP for Central Nova 'a no-cut clause' in his cabinet postings. The Minister of Defence since 2007, it seems that no matter how manifest his inability to competently discharge his duties, he wears a mantle of invincibility.

Probably the most consistent evidence that MacKay is singularly lacking in ability has been his staunch defence of and prevarications about the F-35 fighter jet. Despite compelling evidence adduced over the years that the replacement for the CF-18 will prove far too costly and is ill-suited for our military needs, MacKay has been its biggest cheerleader. Now, after years of denigrating those who oppose the purchase, even the government has admitted it needs to seriously rethink it.

In today's Star article, entitled Opposition MPs take aim at F-35 ‘fiasco’, Bob Rae makes the following assertion:

... MacKay is done, his credibility shot because of his outspoken defence of the F-35 in the past.

“I think the one thing that he’s lost completely is his credibility. ... I don’t think there is anyone who will take his comments about this project seriously ever again,” Rae told reporters.

Given the long pattern of protection afforded MacKay by Stephen Harper, I'm afraid I do not share Mr. Rae's optimism.

Peter MacKay Does Enjoy The Largess of The Public Purse, Doesn't He?

WHEN I GROW UP, I WANNA FLY A BIG JET!

It seems that Peter MacKay, the Defence Minister for our self- and inaccurately-proclaimed fiscal stewards, the Conservatives, does enjoy the generosity of Canadian taxpayers, but at least he is versatile in exploiting that resource. Not content to use it only to shorten his return home from fishing forays in remote regions of Newfoundland, he also likes to spend lavishly for photo-ops in F-35 mock-ups, probably every little boy's dream.

He must have been quite a play companion in his childhood.

The Government's Three Wise Men?

I thought you might enjoy this editorial cartoon courtesy of The Hamilton Spectator:

The Sad Tale of the Bumbling, Prevaricating Defense Minister Continues

I was feeling just a tad depressed today until I read this story.

Would You Buy A Used Car From This Man?

The above question, first asked about Richard Nixon as he ran against John Kennedy in the 1960 Presidential race, was designed to underscore the seemingly untrustworthy nature of the candidate - his shifty, evasive gaze, heavy perspiration, and his 5 o'clock shadow all seemed to suggest a man hiding something.

In the half-century since that race, we rarely feel the need to ask that question anymore, our assumption being that politicians by and large can't be trusted, that they are in fact hiding a great deal from those whose electoral support they are seeking.

Thomas Walkom's excellent column in today's Star takes a look at Stephen Harper's abuse of the public trust, suggesting that once it is lost, it is very very difficult to regain.

After all, would you trust this man to buy an F-35 jet for you?

Linda McQuaig on Harper Austerity

In case you missed it, today's Star has Linda McQuaig's latest column in which she opines on the Harper austerity program, juxtaposing the P.M.'s insistence that we live in challenging fiscal times and thus must cut spending with his government's apparently cavalier attitude about the extra $10 billion that they now admit will be part of the true cost of the F-35 purchases.

She mentions a certain picture at the beginning of her column, which I am reproducing below:

More Fabrications from MacKay

The Indefensible Defense Minister, Peter MacKay, continues to insult the intelligence of all thinking Canadians. As one who has followed the F-35 jet issue somewhat closely for the past year, I am astounded by his latest contemptible 'explanation' that he says proves there was no intention on the part of his government to mislead anyone on the acquisition costs of the jets: an accounting nuance explains the $10 million discrepancy between the real cost of $25 billion and the $15 billion the government adhered to.

I won't even bother wasting my time or yours in pointing out the absolute inadequacy of his explanation. The moral bankruptcy surrounding this issue and indeed the entire Harper regime is obvious for all to see, as is their contempt for all of us.

One more note: As pointed out recently by the always thorough Sixth Estate, throughout the election campaign the Tories referred to the inviolate contract they had for the purchase of the F-35 jets at $75 million a pop. Recent weeks have seen those same Tories claim no contract has been signed, and so no money is in jeopardy. In today's Globe, MacKay warned there would be a cost to cancelling a multi-billion-dollar purchase deal with Lockheed Martin, the lead contractor.

You figure it out. I'm going to pour myself another cup of coffee and get on with my day.

And Because I Hold Harper In Such Contempt ....

I thought I would share today's Star editorial cartoon. Enjoy:

The F-35 Debacle: Will There Be Fallout?

Not counting this post, in the past year I have written nine times on the F-35 jet controversy. I point this out, not to claim any particular perspicacity on the subject, (many others have written much more and in much greater detail than I have) but only to demonstrate how obvious to anyone with even a modest interest in the issue that the jets were going to cost significantly more than the Harper regime repeatedly claimed they would.

That is why it is so distressing to see the liars who govern Canada try to hide behind the Auditor-General's report which not only stated the obvious, but also, because Auditor Michael Ferguson's access was limited to the bureaucracy, was only able to lay the blame at the feet of the Department of National Defense. While Ferguson hinted that political oversight was lacking, his detailed analysis of the absence of due diligence in the information being supplied to the government, and the fact that no questions were asked, bespeak a gross incompetence that cries out for correction.

Unfortunately, that cry will likely result in no changes at all, partly because of the indifference of a woefully disengaged citizenry, and partly because there is little incentive for Harper to do the right thing. After all, he has a majority government, he is aware of the short attention span of the public, and I suspect that when he convinced Defense Minister Peter McKay to betray the Progressive Conservative Party by merging with the Reform Party, a certain immunity from Cabinet termination or demotion was conferred upon him. How else to explain the fact that his exceptional record of incompetence has gone unsanctioned for so long?

Finally, I watched the At Issues Panel on The National last night, with Andrew Coyne and Bruce Anderson. While both agreed that firings are warranted in this situation, Coyne going so far as to say McKay should be 'wearing' this issue, they both seemed to be giving the government a certain benefit of the doubt over the paucity of accurate information it received from the DND . While one of them suggested there might have been some willful ignorance on the part of Cabinet, there should be no question that government heads need to roll, given the tradition of ministerial responsibility and the fact that so much information was so widely and so publicly available to alert them to problems in the procurement assessment.

Anderson weighed in with the question of whether or not this entire debacle will even register with the larger public. On that gloomy prospect, I will end this post.

UPDATE: If you are interested in further analysis, Bruce Anderson has a piece that just appeared in the Globe in which, among other things, he laments what appears to be the end of ministerial responsibility and accountability.

F-35 Lies From The Department of National Defence

Much to my surprise, the National Post has been doing a good job lately in covering Conservative misdeeds. While the Canadian taxpayer has been subjected to so many falsehoods and a great deal of subterfuge about the true cost of the F-35 jets over the past year-and-a half, The Post's John Ivison offers information about next month's report on the jets from Michael Ferguson, the new Auditor-General, that promises to shake up some people.

We can only hope that the report finally 'shoots down in flames' the Harper lie that the jets will only cost $75 million each.

An Epochal Moment in Toryland

While there has been a long and sustained objection to Canada's planned purchase of F-35 jets, today marks the first time that the Harper regime has, even for a moment, taken its head out of the clouds.

Associate Defence Minister Julian (the dour and humourless) Fantino has raised the possibility of abandoning the purchase of the troubled jets.

Of course, I won't be so crass as to suggest that this is in any way a diversionary maneuver, despite the bad odor both the Tories in general and Fantino in particular have been experiencing of late.

I'll let more astute observers do that.

The Latest On The F-35

While the militaristic Canadian Conservative regime, led by flyboy fan Steve and aggressively supported by his Defence Minister, the dishonourable member from Central Nova, continue to champion the acquisition of the F-35 as Canada's next big toy, it is apparent to almost all who keep themselves informed that the plane is both inappropriate for our needs and experiencing huge cost overruns in its pre-production phase. Those are facts that no Harper-led denials and progaganda can change.

The latest information about the plane from a rational source suggests a surprisingly inexpensive alternative to what will become a financial albatross if the Harperites get their way. You can read Peter Morton's thoughts here.

Another Bald-Faced Lie From The Defense Minister

Not that he has any credibility left, but Minister of Defense Peter McKay has told yet another whopper, this one at the Conference of Defence Association's annual meeting.

What Do Stephen Harper and Rob Ford Have In Common?

Both, it seems, have a constitutional aversion to being honest with the people they purport to represent. Click here for a story on Harper's folly (i.e., the F-35 fairy tale Haper Inc. is fond of spinning to benighted voters) and here for how Toronto Mayor Rob Ford tried to bury the truth about the Sheppard subway line he is so passionate about.

By the way, The Toronto Star has announced that it is raising its subscription rates by an average of seven cents a day for seven-day-a-week delivery. The above stories demonstrate the excellence of its investigative reports and overall journalism that I am happy to pay a little extra for.