Australian lawmakers confident in F-35's future

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by spazsinbad » 21 Mar 2016, 02:55

22/03/2016 9:00AM - 5:00PM AEDT Senate, Foreign Affairs, Defence & Trade References Committee (Acquisition of the Joint Strike Fighter)

Blow by Blow Line up in the attached PDF.
THE SENATE FOREIGN AFFAIRS, DEFENCE AND TRADE REFERENCES COMMITTEE
Joint Strike Fighter PUBLIC HEARING Tuesday 22 March 2016 Committee Room 2S1 Parliament House, Canberra
Time Witness
9.00 am Air Power Australia (Submission 9) Mr Peter Goon, Head of T&E; Mr Chris Mills, Member

9.30 am Teleconference: Mr Alan Williams (Submission 20)

10.00 am The Sir Richard Williams Foundation (Submission 17) AIRMSHL Errol J. McCormack AO (Retd), Chair
AIRMSHL Geoff Brown AO (Retd), Chair

10.30 am Break

10.45 am Australian Strategic Policy Institute (Submission 47) Dr Andrew Davies, Director of Research/Senior Analyst - Defence Capability

11.15 am Dr Keith Joiner (Submission 5)

11.45 am Marand (Submission 23) Mr Rohan Stocker, Chief Executive Officer Quickstep Holdings Limited (Submission 26) Mr Tony Quick, Chairman Mr Carl de Koning, Executive General Manager, Business Development & External Relations
Heat Treatment Australia (Submission 32) Ms Karen Stanton, Director – Strategy & Corporate

12.30 pm Lunch

1.30 pm Northrop Grumman Australia (Submission 41) Mr Ian Irving, Chief Executive BAE Systems Australia (Submission 49) Mr Andrew Gresham, F35 Campaign Manager Defence Materials Technology Centre (DMTC) (Submission 24)

2.30 pm Lockheed Martin (Submission 46) Mr Raydon Gates, Chief Executive Mr Jeff Babione, Executive Vice President and General Manager of F-35 Lightening [UNFREAKIN' BELIEVABLE! - THIS MISspellin' is up there with HELMUT] II Program Mr Gary North, Vice President, Customer Requirements, Aeronautics

3.30 pm Break

3.45 pm Department of Defence (Submission 55) AIRMSHL Leo Davies, Chief of Air Force; AVM Leigh Gordon, Program Manager Joint Strike Fighter; AVM Chris Deeble (Retd), Program Manager Joint Strike Fighter; Dr Todd Mansell, Chief Defence Scientist; Mr Steven Grzeskowiak, Deputy Secretary Estate & Infrastructure; Mr Kim Gillis, Deputy Secretary Capability Acquisition & Sustainment

5.00 pm Close"
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by XanderCrews » 21 Mar 2016, 15:33

So are we actually going to get to watch the APA guys blather on and on about the F-22?
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by charlielima223 » 21 Mar 2016, 16:01

XanderCrews wrote:So are we actually going to get to watch the APA guys blather on and on about the F-22?


Didn't a RAAF Air Marshal dismiss their "analysis" as amateur?


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by KamenRiderBlade » 21 Mar 2016, 16:56

charlielima223 wrote:
XanderCrews wrote:So are we actually going to get to watch the APA guys blather on and on about the F-22?


Didn't a RAAF Air Marshal dismiss their "analysis" as amateur?

When they used a modified video game simulation as their "analysis", I call it garbage.


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by XanderCrews » 21 Mar 2016, 17:06

charlielima223 wrote:
XanderCrews wrote:So are we actually going to get to watch the APA guys blather on and on about the F-22?


Didn't a RAAF Air Marshal dismiss their "analysis" as amateur?


That's very tactful actually. I would have used far less flattering words. Fraudelect, hack, retarded, skewed, lying, deceptive, etc.

Can't wait to see them pitch the new F-22 variants!
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by Dragon029 » 22 Mar 2016, 07:51

Spaz, did you record any of the hearings?

I missed APA's and most of Alan Williams', but I did record all of the hearings after that (although I was using software called FRAPS and by accident had a big red framerate overlap visible in my recording of the Sir Richard Williams Foundation hearing - I'll at least make that part of the screen desaturated, if not blank, so it's a bit less annoying).

The others I've recorded fine however; I need to reprocess the videos so they're smaller, but I should be able to begin uploading them tonight.


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by spazsinbad » 22 Mar 2016, 07:55

Hansard will record all the words (& probably misspell 'helmut' and 'Lightening') which will be made available soon. Otherwise I listened to all the words whilst playing Solitaire endlessly. Deeble can talk the bottom out of an iron lung and did well in the process. Overall it was good value for 'how things are at moment' - which are known knowns from earlier.

And I like the way Senator Conroy did not bother to attend whilst asking one question remotely otherwise - nothing... :doh:


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by maus92 » 22 Mar 2016, 14:08

Joint Strike Fighters program 'ambitious project unlikely to be repeated'
March 22, 2016 - 9:46PM | David Wroe | Sydney Morning Herald

"The Joint Strike Fighter program was bedevilled by a "conspiracy of optimism" in its early phase and such an ambitious project is unlikely ever to be repeated, a leading defence analyst has said.

[Reminds me of a famous Rickoverism: "“Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.”"]

But Andrew Davies, senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said that despite delays and cost overruns, the JSF or F-35 Lightning II plane remained the best option on the world arms market for Australia's future air combat.
Dr Davies told a Senate hearing into the JSF that Australia should be prepared to buy more existing Super Hornet fighter jets if problems and delays with the JSF continue.

While rejecting the more dire criticisms of the aircraft - including claims it won't measure up to other fighters already flying - Dr Davies said the program had been poorly managed early on.

The institute, in its written submission to the hearing, said there had been a "conspiracy of optimism" about how quickly and cheaply the JSF could be made, and even possibly about what it will be able to do.

Before it was overhauled in 2010, the JSF program had been run on a "pretty optimistic and pretty poor basis", Dr Davies said.

Asked by Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson whether this was still the case, Dr Davies said: "I think there is still a little bit of overselling of schedules and, in particular, software may continue to be a problem, but I don't think it's anywhere near the level of misplaced optimism as was the case before the 2010 major reshuffle of the program.""

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/ ... z43dWRAEwL
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by spazsinbad » 22 Mar 2016, 14:21

'maus92' wot no quotes from APA? Too embarrassed huh. So Mr. ASPI protests about F-35 ancient history but not so much about 'since the rebaseline history' of the program. Oh dear. What will happen next? More underlining? The HANSARD transcript will be a doozy. You do know from your publishing background that 'underlining' makes for difficult reading comprehension - especially on screen reading? Do more of it - puhleez.


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by XanderCrews » 22 Mar 2016, 20:27

maus92 wrote:Joint Strike Fighters program 'ambitious project unlikely to be repeated'
March 22, 2016 - 9:46PM | David Wroe | Sydney Morning Herald

"The Joint Strike Fighter program was bedevilled by a "conspiracy of optimism" in its early phase and such an ambitious project is unlikely ever to be repeated, a leading defence analyst has said.

[Reminds me of a famous Rickoverism: "“Optimism and stupidity are nearly synonymous.”"]

But Andrew Davies, senior analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said that despite delays and cost overruns, the JSF or F-35 Lightning II plane remained the best option on the world arms market for Australia's future air combat.
Dr Davies told a Senate hearing into the JSF that Australia should be prepared to buy more existing Super Hornet fighter jets if problems and delays with the JSF continue.

While rejecting the more dire criticisms of the aircraft - including claims it won't measure up to other fighters already flying - Dr Davies said the program had been poorly managed early on.

The institute, in its written submission to the hearing, said there had been a "conspiracy of optimism" about how quickly and cheaply the JSF could be made, and even possibly about what it will be able to do.

Before it was overhauled in 2010, the JSF program had been run on a "pretty optimistic and pretty poor basis", Dr Davies said.

Asked by Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson whether this was still the case, Dr Davies said: "I think there is still a little bit of overselling of schedules and, in particular, software may continue to be a problem, but I don't think it's anywhere near the level of misplaced optimism as was the case before the 2010 major reshuffle of the program.""

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/ ... z43dWRAEwL
Follow us: @smh on Twitter | sydneymorningherald on Facebook


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by bigjku » 22 Mar 2016, 21:44

Honestly I don't disagree that the program was overly optimistic. Nor that it missed goals. What I worry about is people are taking the wrong lessons as to why that is so. What most of the idiots like to scream about is that forcing the services to work together causes the issue. When I see what things have delayed this I see very few that have a lot to do with having the three variants and a lot that would have happened even if you just built the A model. Hell, I see the same capability delays and program delays in other non-stealth programs. The Eurofigther is still inching towards full capability and a proper modern radar after all. Then they scream about concurrency which also doesn't appear to have really cost much in the end either.

To me the lessons that need to be learned are as follows.

1. Modern avionics are difficult, particularly when one is starting mostly fresh. We need to try in as much as possible to do largely incremental and platform neutral work wherever possible. Obviously flight control laws will be specific to the platform but in as much as we can electronic defense and attack and sensor integration should be as common as possible. Then develop it incrementally in a manner similar to what has occurred with AEGIS for the navy. The F-35 was probably the necessary dirty first step for this. The B-21 should leverage off of this as should future aircraft.

2. Don't allow the situation to build to the point where we have to replace everything in a short period. Development skills atrophy, too many things become dated and too much risk falls on one program. A proper beat of development in my view sees the us moving from F-35 to B-21 to next heavy fighter to F-35 replacement with one starting about every 10 years. When you effectively stop for a long period it is problematic. If we can spread risk across a constant run of programs we can push avionics advancements on the B-21 and engine advances on the F-22 replacement and something else on the F-35 replacement. If we have a reasonably common architecture we can then back fit much of that to existing fleets and use it going forward.

Some program had to be first. If the B-21 leverages a lot of F-35 stuff and is successful and on budget then we have learned a lesson and paid the cost to move forward in this new era of network and data driven warfare. If we start from scratch then clearly we haven't or we botched the F-35 badly. Time will tell. But I don't think much of the difficulty has to do with the things commonly cited.


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by KamenRiderBlade » 22 Mar 2016, 23:53

Before the F-35 JSF program, the big program was the F-18 Super Hornet.

But what really new technologies did the F-18 Super Hornet bring that wasn't available beforehand?

Somebody help me on that one cause I'm drawing a blank.

Before the F-18 Super Hornet, the big program was the F-22.

What's the time gap between F-22 starting and F-22 going FOC

We know what the F-22 brought, plenty of new technologies integrated into a tight package.

Then compare it to the F-18 Super Hornet starting and F-18 going FOC

Then let's see when did the JSF planning start.

That's got to give us some insight as to time frames.


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by count_to_10 » 23 Mar 2016, 00:48

bigjku wrote:Honestly I don't disagree that the program was overly optimistic. Nor that it missed goals. What I worry about is people are taking the wrong lessons as to why that is so. What most of the idiots like to scream about is that forcing the services to work together causes the issue. When I see what things have delayed this I see very few that have a lot to do with having the three variants and a lot that would have happened even if you just built the A model. Hell, I see the same capability delays and program delays in other non-stealth programs. The Eurofigther is still inching towards full capability and a proper modern radar after all. Then they scream about concurrency which also doesn't appear to have really cost much in the end either.

To me the lessons that need to be learned are as follows.

1. Modern avionics are difficult, particularly when one is starting mostly fresh. We need to try in as much as possible to do largely incremental and platform neutral work wherever possible. Obviously flight control laws will be specific to the platform but in as much as we can electronic defense and attack and sensor integration should be as common as possible. Then develop it incrementally in a manner similar to what has occurred with AEGIS for the navy. The F-35 was probably the necessary dirty first step for this. The B-21 should leverage off of this as should future aircraft.

2. Don't allow the situation to build to the point where we have to replace everything in a short period. Development skills atrophy, too many things become dated and too much risk falls on one program. A proper beat of development in my view sees the us moving from F-35 to B-21 to next heavy fighter to F-35 replacement with one starting about every 10 years. When you effectively stop for a long period it is problematic. If we can spread risk across a constant run of programs we can push avionics advancements on the B-21 and engine advances on the F-22 replacement and something else on the F-35 replacement. If we have a reasonably common architecture we can then back fit much of that to existing fleets and use it going forward.

Some program had to be first. If the B-21 leverages a lot of F-35 stuff and is successful and on budget then we have learned a lesson and paid the cost to move forward in this new era of network and data driven warfare. If we start from scratch then clearly we haven't or we botched the F-35 badly. Time will tell. But I don't think much of the difficulty has to do with the things commonly cited.

I've wondered before if it wouldn't be better to have a branch of the military devoted just to developing and producing all the equipment for the combat branches. There have been a lot of missed opportunities to save money with joint programs, and arguably a whole lot of cases where the separate projects ended up worse because the services weren't sharing experience and information.
Einstein got it backward: one cannot prevent a war without preparing for it.

Uncertainty: Learn it, love it, live it.


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by Dragon029 » 23 Mar 2016, 00:57

The first of several videos; the Department of Defence (Submission 55) hearing:



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by maus92 » 23 Mar 2016, 01:19

spazsinbad wrote:'maus92' wot no quotes from APA? Too embarrassed huh. So Mr. ASPI protests about F-35 ancient history but not so much about 'since the rebaseline history' of the program. Oh dear. What will happen next? More underlining? The HANSARD transcript will be a doozy. You do know from your publishing background that 'underlining' makes for difficult reading comprehension - especially on screen reading? Do more of it - puhleez.


Perhaps it's different south of the equator, but underlining (or otherwise highlighting) passages generally improves reading comprehension. The leading (line spacing) on this forum allows for underlining that is comfortably readable.


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