F-35 Joint Strike Fighter News, Videos and pics Thread

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
The GAO serves its purpose which is to identify faults with procurement or operations which require mitigation.
If anything government supervisory organisms like GAO have too little power rather than the opposite.
 
noticed through
Lockheed awarded $90m for F-35 Core Processor depot repair system
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:
Contracts for April 25, 2019
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  • April 25, 2019
  • Contracts
  • Press Operations
  • Release No: CR-078-19
"Lockheed Martin Corp., Fort Worth, Texas, is awarded $90,773,387 for fixed-price-incentive-fee modification P00014 to a previously awarded contract (N0001918C1048). This modification will stand up organic depot repair capabilities for the F-35 integrated core processor. Work will be performed in McKinney, Texas (39.1 percent); Owego, New York (32.7 percent); Fort Worth, Texas (14.5 percent); Camden, New Jersey (5.9 percent); Clearwater, Florida (5 percent) and Melbourne, Florida (2.8 percent), and is expected to be completed in October 2022. Fiscal 2019 aircraft procurement (Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy) funds in the amount of $90,773,387 will be obligated at time of award, none of which will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. This modification combines purchases for the U.S. Air Force ($45,386,693; 50 percent), U.S. Marine Corps ($22,693,347; 25 percent) and the U.S. Navy ($22,693,347; 25 percent). The Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity."
 

Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
Dint they have fancy logistics system that's supposed to cure all of these ills
The fancy logistic system collapsed, and all maintenance activity ended up under the rubble .

Identified problems:
1. original system specification expected 80% common parts between aircraft. Reality is 20% commonality .
2. Expected to be capable to rework all manufactured plane to new specification. Not possible to do this with the first (few) hundred units.
3. Locked doesn't use during the building of the aircraft the ALIS database to populate the BOM of each aircraft, with the common P/N and S/N numbers. This can bring to the knee any system, considering that close to 20 % of the lifetime air frame number already manufactured.

These are the known problems, it doesn't considering anything like incompetent database design, fragmented programming and so on.
The no 1&2 exploded the BOM by a magnitude at least. The third destroyed the consistency and validity of it.
 

Anlsvrthng

Captain
Registered Member
I wondering about the next question for a while.
If the Lockheed can't handle the mediocre and mundane task of maintenance/spare part database creation, then how can they handle the cutting edge/ extremely complex sensor fusion programming/ database organisation task?
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
oh is this what's happening? funny how in the past you tried to implicate Mr. Gilmore LOL now the GAO has Trump's guy in charge, just the F-35 issues stay

It ain't McDonal's Jura, where you can get a Big Mac anyway you want it, as long as its two burgers, lettuce, cheese and a special sauce on a sesame seed bun!

Furthermore, I didn't "try" to implicate Michael Gilmore, I DID IMPLICATE Michael Gilmore, and who is "Trump's Guy in charge??? the GAO does perform some helpful functions, its their "Holier than thou attitude" and the "surprise" when rolling out the most sophisticated weapon on the planet results in a laundry list of "SNAFU's",,, are you telling me you're surprised roll-outs are a "pain in the ass", have you ever operated a piece of equipment that didn't have issues that had to be worked out???? I mean really.....

and then you've got the "rocket scientist" all excited because each of the 3 F-35's are very distinct aircraft, distinct as dictated by "mission requirements", the Marines have a STOVL aircraft that for all intents and purposes mirrors the capabilities of the F-35A and the F-35C, that's incredible capability...

You've got to remember the Marine have pushed this program as far out front as they are able with "brute force, and main strength", they have pushed the baby bird "out of the nest", do you understand that concept brother, there are squawks and issues, parts packages aren't up to snuff, 44% of the parts were incompatible, those kits have been prepared and "out there" a long time, now we're going to find out what really needs to be in those kits....

NOW, how long has the HORNET been aboard ship Bub?? how long, are you aware of the parts conundrum with that airplane?? you surely should be! so if they have major issues launching the HORNET because of poor maintenance, and lack of parts?? due to budget cuts and sequestration, should it surprise you that the most complex, capable military forward strike aircraft in the world has a steep learning curve???
 

Air Force Brat

Brigadier
Super Moderator
for years I've been wondering if LockMart is THAT cynical and over-engineers so that the Pentagon will have to stockpile parts to be able to fly at least some aircraft

Huh? you really think along those lines?? good grief, HELL NO!, LockMart to date continues to put forth the best effort to bring the warfighter a "silver bullet"!
 

Brumby

Major
for years I've been wondering if LockMart is THAT cynical and over-engineers so that the Pentagon will have to stockpile parts to be able to fly at least some aircraft

GAO Hits F-35 Readiness, Blames Parts Pipeline
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F-35 full mission capability rate only 27% due to parts shortages
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U.S. Marine Corps Deploying Incompatible F-35 Spare Parts
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Folks et al,

This whole debacle about spare parts and its impact on readiness especially at sea needs to be put in perspective.

Prepositioning spare parts on board a carrier is a normal part of at sea deployment. Prepositioning also means predetermining failures and what parts will fail while at sea. While there is science behind it, nevertheless it is a probability driven event and that means you can't always get it right .This is compounded by concurrency issues with the earlier build and part fit issues. This are start up issues and will eventually go away as the concurrency builds are about 100 planes. Eventually the issues will tailor off as their weighting to overall build become increasingly less relevant. Could they have done better with parts management? I think so but I am not in their shoes to have all the facts. Shooting from the hip is easy - try managing a multi billion program and see how you fare. We can always compare aviation at sea readiness between the USN with the Russians or the Chinese. I have not seen any activities lately from them let alone transparency.

Parts management is a management and process issue. They are always solvable with the right focus and attention. The important point is whether the F-35 is the delivering the capabilities as advertised.
 
[formatting]
thought if they'd intentionally create subvariants within subvariants within ... to then cannibalize 100+m gear, as in
V-22 Osprey Thread - News, Pics, Videos Feb 26, 2017
...

what's frigging unbelievable is this:

“If you don’t have the parts you need on the shelf, what does a good industrious sailor or Marine do? They go get it off another airplane,” Davis said.

(plus the next paragraph; from inside the link you posted Yesterday at 11:10 PM) I mean considering the cost of Ospreys, the hype surrounding them ... they have to cannibalize?!
with the goal to shuffle money into LockMart, of course

would make the F-35 a perfect product, LOL
 
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