Showstopper

It is understood Lockheed Martin had big plans for Avalon to announce or demonstrate capabilities across its broad range of recently restructured business units. But those plans had to be shelved following the fleet-wide grounding of the F-35 by the US Department of Defense following the discovery of a 15mm crack on a thirdstage turbine blade during a routine 50-hour boroscope inspection of a test aircraft’s F135 engine.

Unfortunately for Lockheed Martin, the news of the grounding came just before Avalon, which would bring together everyone from the Minister for Defence, senior departmental and uniform officials from Defence, prime contractors, defence and aviation journalists, and notably, the Pentagon’s F-35 Joint Project Office (JPO) chief, Lt Gen Chris Bogdan.

The cautionary flight suspension was lifted on March 1 following the completion of engineering analysis on the cracked blade.

“Comprehensive tests on the blade were conducted at the Pratt & Whitney facility in Middletown, Connecticut. The engine in question is part of the F-35 test aircraft fleet and had been operated for extended time in the high-temperature environment in its mission to expand the F-35 flight envelope,” a statement by the US JPO read.

“Prolonged exposure to high levels of heat and other operational stressors on this specific engine were determined to be the cause of the crack. No additional cracks were found during inspections of the remaining F135 inventory. ” But the PR damage was done for Lockheed Martin. The start and finish of the grounding had book-ended Avalon’s trade show and focused media attention on the F-35’s problems rather than its potential. And the visit by Lt Gen Bogdan only served to intensify that media interest following his extraordinarily frank press briefing.

“The first point I’d like to make overall is: don’t expect me to be a cheerleader for the F-35 program.

That’s not my job. My job is to execute this program. If I start becoming an advocate or a zealot for this program, I lose my credibility,” he said.

“One of the biggest problems I have is an awful lot of people with opinions on this program and not a lot of people with the facts. And those opinions are based on what I would call the tragic history of this program. This program is getting better and is better than what it was a few years ago. ” Bogdan said the program was on track since being rebaselined in 2010- 2011 and should now be judged on where it’s going, rather than where it has been.

But the frank nature of Bogdan’s comments (see our detailed feature elsewhere this issue) combined with the timing of the grounding, a scathing ABC Four Corners report into the F-35 which aired in the lead-up to the airshow, and the government’s ongoing deliberations on a potential second Super Hornet buy for the RAAF, meant the F-35 was the focus of attention at Avalon 2013, despite the fact that an actual jet was not in attendance.

“Is anybody here with the ABC?” Bogdan asked at his press conference.

“No, you wouldn’t admit it if you were. ” And so lost in that noise was Lockheed Martin’s message about the F-35 progressing in flight-test, and the potential industry benefits to Australia as an industrial partner in the program. Lockheed Martin’s vicepresident of F-35 program integration Steve O’Bryan stated at Avalon that the Australian aerospace and defence industry is positioned to secure an estimated US$5. 5 billion of F-35 work over the life of the program.

To date 28 Australian companies have already won contracts valued at US$280 million, supporting more than 4,400 jobs directly or indirectly over the last three years.

But do Australian companies making F-35 components have anything to fear should the Australian government decide to acquire fewer than 100 jets? “The industrial plan [for each partner nation] is built around how many aeroplanes you order; you do not get the same industrial plan if you order 500 jets versus one aeroplane,” he said.

“What we have said in Italy and every other country is there is a proportional relationship between the industrial plan and the amount of jets you order. ” Now that is an Avalon story that has not achieved prominence.

Is anybody here with the ABC? No, you wouldn’t admit it if you were.