In Transition

Australia Has Committed to the Purchase of 72 F-35s. The First Two Jets, Au-1 and Au-2 From Low Rate Initial Production (Lrip) Batch 6, Have Been Delivered to Luke Afb, Arizona Where They Have Entered a Common Pool of Aircraft Used to Conduct Graduate Pilot Training at the Usaf Integrated Training Center.

The Other 12 Aircraft Approved for Procurement Under Project Air 6000 Phase 2a/2b Stage 1 Are to Follow From Lrips 10 and 11.

A Subsequent Commitment for Further 58 Jets (Under Air 6000 Phase 2a/2b Stage 2) Was Approved by the Australian Government in May 2014.

These F-35s Will Be Lrip 11 and Full-rate Production (Frp) Aircraft, With the Last Nine Jets Set to Be Delivered in 2023. All Up Program Cost, Which Includes Initial Sustainment and Capital Works, is Budgeted at $15. 4 Billion.

However, These Aircraft Are Yet to Be Funded, and Australia Theoretically Has the Option of Opting Out of a Jsf Purchase Altogether Should Its Costs Continue to Spiral, Australia’s Budget Comes Under Severe Pressure, or Both.

Recent Milestones

Like the F-35’s Production, Which Has 131 Aircraft Having Beendelivered by the End of January, Australia’s Jsf Involvement is Now Ramping Up Significantly With the Reaching of Several Key Project Milestones. In January, It Was Announced That the First Raaf F-35 Pilot, Sqnldr Andrew Jackson, Had Begun His Conversion Onto the Jet.

This Was Followed by the Pentagon’s Decision the Same Month to Make Australia a Regional Hub for Heavy Maintenance for Both Airframes and Engines as Part of the Jsf Autonomic Logistics Global System.

These Critical Events in Australia’s F-35 Acquisition Have Occurred While the Aircraft Itself is Concurrently in Low-rate Production and Undergoing Flight Testing.

In 2013, the Usaf Justified This Approach, Stating: “concurrent Testing and a Graduate Training Program Towards Full Combat Capability Remain Necessary to Meet F-35 Initial Operational Capability and Force Structure Requirements. ” While That May Be So, It is a Fact That Concurrency Remains the Chief Technical Risk Facing the F-35, as Deficiencies in the Design

All Up Program Cost, Which Includes Initial Sustainment and Capital Works, is Budgeted at $15. 4 Billion.

Require Rectification by Means of Expensive Retrofits or Longdelayed Software Patches. After Prolonged Wrangling Between the Two, Lockheed Martin and the Us Government Agreed to Jointly Fund the Cost Remediation Actions.

Risky Business

Overseeing Australia’s F-35 Acquisition is Avm Chris Deeble, the Defence Materiel Organisation’s Program Manager for the Project.

A 2,000 Hour F-111 Navigator, Since Joining the Dmo in 2006 He Has Acquired Something of a ‘mr Fixit’ Reputation, Having Played a Key Role in Troubleshooting Projects Such as the Wedgetail Aew&c Aircraft, Collins Class Submarine and the Kc-30a Tanker Transport.

He is Therefore Eminently Qualified to Identify and Assess the Technical and Financial Risks That Continue to Confront the Program, and More Specifically, Australia’s $15. 4 Billion Acquisition Investment in the F-35 Capability and Establishment of the Sustainment System, Representing Billions of Dollars Over the 30-year Life of the Program.

“the Challenges at the Moment Are That We’re in a Phase Where We’re Conducting Ongoing Development of the Capability, We Are in Production for the Airframes, and We Are Also Just About to Start Supporting the Capability in Earnest.

All of Those Things Come With Their Own Dimension and Tension,” Says Avm Deeble. “when You Start Parallel Development, Production and Sustainment Activity, That Level of Concurrency Adds a Lot of Complexity to Any Program. So That is a Significant Factor. ” Certainly the F-35 is a Program With No End of Complexity, as the Us and Its Global Partners Seek to Cost-effectively Mass Produce a Software-intensive Fifth Generation Stealth Fighter in Three Variants.

And While Lockheed Martin Andits Partners Are Making Laudable Progress in Reducing Per Unit Production Costs, the Aircraft Itself, as a Combat System, Continues to Delight Its Critics and Test the Ardour of Its Advocates.

A Report by the Usaf’s Director of Operational Training and Evaluation (Dot&e) Issued 12 Months Ago Found Deficiencies With the Aircraft’s Block 2b Software Load Was Affecting the Performance of Its Radar, Ew, Navigation, Electro-optical Target System, Navigation, Distributed Aperture System, Helmet Mounted Display System, Datalinks and an Inability to Fire Its 25mm Gau-22 Cannon.

Commenting on the Remediation Being Undertaken by the F-35’s Stakeholders, Avm Deeble Observed: “the Software of This Platform is Very, Very Complex. Unlike Other Platforms, Where the Man-in-the-loop Was Very Important and He Was the One Who Wasassimilating the Data and Making the Decision Based on Information That Was Going on in His Mind, This Aircraft is One That is Taking Lots of Data and Trying to Do a Lot of That Work So the Pilot Can Concentrate on What’s Important, His Survivability and Delivering the Effects That He Needs to in the Battlespace.

“the Truth is Jsf is Lagging Behind What Was Projected in Its Earlier Planning, in Many Areas. There Has Been Some Overly Optimistic Views of How Quickly It Would Evolve, and a Belief That the Mistakes of Other Programs Won’t Be Repeated. But, the Sorts of Metrics That I Look at – I Think That the Software Will Evolve, and There’s No Showstopper That Will Prevent Us From Getting What We Need, It Just May Not Occur in Exactly the Timeframe That is Currently Being Projected.

“does That Mean That Software Loads We Take Into Service in Australia Will Not Meet the Operational Need? I’m Not Saying That at All. I Think That There Will Be Plenty of Utility in the Software, Plenty of Operational Capability That We’ll Be Able to Exercise in the Timeframe That We Need That Software. So When the Aircraft Comes Back to Australia, We’ll Want to Have That Appropriate Operational Capability and Training Capability to Start Ramping Up Our Own Training Here in Australia and to Conduct Our Iot&e. But It Won’t Have Everything We Anticipated It Would Have, in Reality. ” Australia’s Initial Intake of F-35a Pilots Will Train on Aircraft Fitted With Block 3i (Interim), Essentially Block 2b Software Rehosted on Newer Avionics Hardware. Block 3f (for Final) Software is Not Expected to Be Fitted to Aircraft Until 2018, but It Will Allow the Jet, Among Other Things, to Launch the Aim‑9x, Agm-154 Jsow,i Need to Keep a Close Watch on Affordability and the Issues That May Drive Cost. Employ Full Synthetic Aperture Radar Mapping and See an Expansion of Its Flight Envelope.

Though Block 3f Software Permits Australia’s F-35s to Attain Ioc, It Will Still Fall Short of Its Initially Promised Capabilities, as Avm Deeble Explained. “it Will Be Those Areas That Are the Hardest to Get Right. It Will Be Around Data Fusion, Higher-end Weapon Functionality That is Not Necessarily Required From Day 1, but It Must Evolve to Get Us There in the Final Endgame. So You Will See Those Things That Would Normally Be Very Hard, and They’ll Be Harder in This Context, Made Harder by the Fact That It’s Trying to Automate a Lot of Functions, Trying to Do Things That Have Not Been Effectively Achieved on Other Platforms to Date.

“but My Considered Opinion is That There’s No Showstoppers in There and I Don’t Think We’ll Be Missing Serious Functionality. It Just May Not Have All the Bells and Whistles That We Would Like to See at the Time It’s Delivered. But the Other Key Element of This Program is the Block Update Cycle That Will Enable the Capability to Continue to Evolve. So There Are Blocks Where That Additional Work Can Be Undertaken. What We’ve Got to Do is Avoid a Bow Wave of Problems Moving Forward So We Can Enhance the Capability and Cater for the Evolving Threat, and I’m Confident That All the Right Metrics Are There. ”

JSF

Efficiency Gains at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth F-35 Assembly Line and Throughout the Global Component Supply Chain Have Translated Into Lower Costs Per Unit for the Conventional Takeoff and Landing (Ctol) Variant Especially. While Lrip 6 F-35a Aircraft Were Listed as Costing Us$103 Million(Minus the P&w F135 Engine), the Target Price for Lrip 8 Ctol F-35as is Us$98. 4 Million.

Avm Deeble Expressed Cautious Optimism at the Trend. “the Affordability of the Airframe is Tracking Well – the Slope of the Curve is Trending the Right Way – So I’m Not as Concerned About Unit Recurring Flyaway Cost to the Extent That I Would Have Been in the Past, but

I Need to Keep a Close Watch on Affordability and the Issues That May Drive Cost.

However, Ensuring That the Jsf Achieves Its Supportability and Affordability in Sustainment is a Key Concern. ” Industry the F-35 Program Brings Together 1,400 Suppliers From 49 Us States and Companies and 10 Countriesacross the Globe, Who Together Produce the 300,000 Components That Make Up an F-35. To Date, Australia’s Involvement as a Level 3 Industrial Partner Has Seen Local Companies Awarded Over Us$430 Million in Contracts for Component Design and Manufacture, While Through-life Sustainment Represents Significant Opportunities for the Australian Aerospace Industry.

Avm Deeble Predicts That the Challenges Posed by Maintaining a Fleet of Fifth Gen Strike Fighters Will See a Fundamental Reshaping of the Raaf’s Relationship With Industry.

“industry is a Fundamental Input to Capability, in My Mind, for a Fifth Gen Air Force. And That Compels You to Look at the Way in Which You Choose to Partner With Industry, to Teaming Arrangements, and the Industry Agility, Innovation and Responsiveness Required to Introduce the Required Future Technology. That’s a Paradigm Change. It’s Actually Creating the Other Arm of the Triangle Where Industry is Working Closely With the End User Customer, Ensuring Ongoing Operational Effectiveness and Affordability of the Capability. ” Avm Deeble Welcomed the Announcement of Bae Systems Australia and Tae Successfully Bidding to Undertake Regional Heavy Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade Work for the F-35a’s Airframe and Engine, Respectively.

“australian Industry Will Have the Immediate Future Opportunity of Competing and Looking For

i’ve Not Heard Other Nations Thinking as Far Forward About How We’re Going to Integrate This Capability.

Assignment of Responsibility for Component Level Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul and Upgrade, Effectively the Major Systems on the Jsf,” Said Avm Deeble.

“we’re Still Looking for More Opportunities to Do Work With Australian Industry. We’re Also Working With the F-35’s Joint Project Office to See What the Global Sustainment System Looks Like and the Extent to Which We Might Control Some of Those Industry Outcomes Ourselves or That We Might Be Reliant on the Global System to Deliver. The Advantage of Being Part of the Global Systems is That There Are 3,000 Jsfs in Play. So Getting Spares, Support Equipment, Treating That in the Global Context Will Clearly Help Us Get Greater Affordability. ” Further, Said Avm Deeble: “we’re Looking at What We Must Control From a Sovereign Perspective and What That Means From Our Industry Base as a Consequence. We Are Currently Investigating What We Need to Plug Into in Terms of the Global Support Network, and What That Means for Opportunities of Leveraging Australian Industry Into That Outcome. ”

Tumbling Down

in May 2014, Chief of Air Force, Airmshl Geoff Brown, in a Landmark Speech Unveiled ‘plan Jericho’, in Which He Challenged Assembled Adf and Industry Figures to Adopt a Fifth Generation Mindset of Interoperability Through Which Defence and Industry Can Cooperate to Eradicate Barriers to Productive Mutual Cooperation.

To Avm Deeble, Airmshl Brown’s Far Reaching Call to Industry is Unexampled by His Professional Peers, Both Here Andabroad. “i Would Have to Say the Chief of Air Force’s Approach With Jericho is Leading Every Other Nation. In My Engagement in Jsf, I’ve Not Heard Other Nations Thinking as Far Forward About How We’re Going to Integrate This Capability and I Think One of the Key Issues From the Chief’s Perspective is ‘implications for Air Force’, but He Sees It as Equally Informing and Influencing the Joint Environment Here in Australia and We Don’t Want to Leave Anyone [in the Adf] Behind; We Want Everyone Along the Journey. ” Proximity to the Emerging, Transformative Capabilities of the F-35 Has Convinced Avm Deeble That Jsf Will Catalyse a Far Reaching Transformation of the the Raaf’s Organisational Structures, Doctrine and People.

“i Think Jsf Will Make Us Look at Our Battlespace Management Concepts. For a Jsf to Be Lethal and Survivable, It Needs Information. It Needs to Be Programmed Up on the Ground to Be Able to Do That, and It Needs to Get Data in Real Time From Other Sources, Like Aew&c. So Now We Have to Think About Our Command and Control Context and How We Execute. It’s About Thinking About Centralised Command and How You Enunciate Commanders’ Intent and Provide the Authority to Do What Needs to Be Done. It is About Distributed Control and Decentralised Execution. It’s About Getting People Into the Right Place at the Right Time to Create the Right Mass to Deliver the Right Kinetic or Non-kinetic Effect and the Integration That Enables This. And the Orchestration of That is Where the Challenges Are.

“so I Think What You’ll See Out of Jericho is a Fundamental Rethinking of How We’ll Fight With a Fifth Gen Air Force in a Joint and Coalition Environment With Some Fourth Gen Components and Some Third Gen Elements. ”

The Future is Now

When Mature, the F-35 With Its Fused Sensors, Apg-81 Aesa Radar, Low-observability Airframe and Precision-guided Munitions Will Represent the Most Potent Air Combat Asset Ever Operated by the Royal Australian Air Force. To Avm Deeble, the Jsf’s Overly Long Development Invites Comparison With Another Pre-eminent Strike Aircraft That Also Suffered a Tortured Entry Into Service, the F-111.

“i Think That This Aircraft is Like the F-111. It is Only at the Point You Start to Operate This Aircraft, to Employ It Operationally, That People’s Faith in That Aircraft Will Really Be There. And I Think There Will Always Be Criticism of the Fact That It’s Not Fifth Gen Because It Doesn’t Have Supercruise or Thrust Vectoring, but My View is if I Have to Use These Characteristics Then I’m Probably Not Playing in the Right Game. This Aircraft is About Doing It at a Distance, Using Its Lo Qualities, Enhancing Its Survivability and Lethality, Shooting First.

“as an Airman, I’m Confident the Jsf Will Be the Right Choice. I Do See There’ll Be More Issues Like We Recently Encountered With the Engine Fire That We Had Last Year, Because Issues Like That Will Pop Up in Complex Developmental Programs. The Jsf is Very Different to the Fighter Capability We Have Operated in the Past and We Will Need the Capability to Continue to Mature and Learn From Our Operational Experience. When I Project Forward, Looking at Those Risks and Development Path, I’m Confident We Can Get to Where We Need to and the Aircraft Can Evolve, Remain Capable, and Able to Counter Future Threats. ” of All the Variables That Confront the F-35 Program, One Thing is Certain: Neither the Last Line of Either Software, or Copy, Has Been Written Yet.