Let’s Talk About The USAF's Claim Of 'Fully Combat Capable' F-35s06 Sep 2017 Joseph Trevithick"Of all the issues surrounding the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, perhaps the most hotly contested is the criteria the U.S. Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy are using to judge when the jets will be ready for combat and whether certain milestones accurately reflect the stealth fighter’s capabilities. The Air Force has now reignited this debate by stating that it will have "fully combat capable" F-35As by the end of September 2017 even though the jet hasn't even started independent operational test and evaluation trials.... [It is up to the services to decide I thought]
...Still, it’s not entirely clear how the Air Force is defining “fully combat capable” in this case. None of the three F-35 variants have even begun the mandatory testing process run by the Pentagon's Office of the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E), which is independent of the individual services.
What is clear is that this is not the same, nor is the service claiming it is, as a formal declaration of “full operational capability,” or FOC. The Pentagon-standard definition for FOC is when every unit that is supposed to receive a certain weapon system has gotten that piece of equipment and can both operate and maintain it. This announcement is generally only supposed to come after the system passes DOT&E's rigorous independent testing regime.
The Air Force had already added confusion to this process by declaring initial operational capability (IOC), which is supposed to reflect a basic operational capability, for the F-35A before the end of developmental testing and without any operational evaluations. The service seems to be again obfuscating the situation, intentionally or unintentionally, by using
a term that sounds similar to FOC, but isn't, [OMG s h I t sounds like shite but - ARE THEY THE SAME?] which has already led to confusion in the media about what this new announcement realistically means....
...Of the three services purchasing F-35 variants, the U.S. Navy is the only one that has not declared IOC with its jets, continuing to link that milestone to the successful completion of operational testing. The U.S. Marine Corps and the Air Force say they have achieved this with their F-35s and now the Air Force curiously says it plans to declare IOC for the Block 3F software itself once the code begins reaching operational and training units....
...there’s no guarantee that the Block 3F software will allow F-35A pilots to effectively employ some or all of these weapons. We don’t even know for sure what specific version of it the Air Force will distribute for its software "IOC."...
[Lots of LaDeDah about different Block 3F versions/faults with their guesswork] ...thanks to the Freedom of Information Act, we do know that the service already deliberately watered down its capability criteria to meet its own, self-imposed schedule for declaring IOC with the F-35A in August 2016.
This was mainly out of fear that delaying the milestone any further would become a political and public relations nightmare that could've potentially impacted Congressional support and foreign sales.... [evidence for this claim?]
...None of this is to say that the ultimate version of the Block 3F software won't perform as required and provide the services with an F-35 that is highly capable, one that is even ready for combat in an emergency. The concern is that the rush to get the jets into service could put pilots in the seat of a jet that just isn't ready yet, exposing them to unnecessary risks, which is why the operational test and evaluation process exists in the first place.
This does means the F-35 program isn’t necessarily progressing forward and meeting its goals, either.... [PHEW!]
...One has to wonder whether the Air Force and the Marines Corps are now making the same mistake by trying to drum up support for the aircraft with this largely undefined claim, which is undoubtedly technically accurate based on the services’ internal criteria, of fielding fully combat capable F-35s before the independent operational test and evaluation process has even begun."
Source: http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/14 ... able-f-35s 
05 Sep 2017, 19:41
