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Friday, June 14, 2019

Funny F-35/Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Problems, Random Stuff, and More

- it's really obvious that the US purchased information from the Soviets regarding their Yak-141 (and it's variants) program to use on the JSF. What's funny is that the US has also discovered that their plane also suffers from many of the same problems that the Soviet Union had with program/s
Moscow's Yakovlev aircraft design bureau has signed an agreement with the American aerospace giant Lockheed-Martin to help develop a new U.S. supersonic fighter capable of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), a company official said Monday. 

The contract is the latest partnership between Russia's struggling aviation companies and their Western counterparts, all trying to make ends meet in the post-Cold War world.

Arkady Gurtovoy, Yakovlev's deputy general director, said Lockheed Martin wants to tap the "huge experience" of the Russian company in developing the supersonic VTOL jets.

"The Yak-141 is still the most advanced aircraft of its kind in the world," Gurtovoy said, referring to a mid-1980s program that was shelved after the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991. No other countries have developed similar aircraft, he said, "so no wonder the Americans needed us."

The British Harrier jet that saw activity in the 1983 Falklands war is the most famous similar model, but it is not capable of supersonic speed. VTOL enables military jets to be deployed to combat zones without full-length carrier decks.

Under the contract, signed at the end of August, Yakovlev is to offer technical advice on American-built technology, Gurtovoy said. 

He would not specify the value of the six-month contract, calling it "mutually profitable," but Interfax reported that Lockheed-Martin would spend approximately $400 million on research and development of the fighter by 1998.

Lockheed officials could not be reached for comment Monday.

Gurtovoy said the contract will help to reopen the Yak-141 program and keep specialists from leaving the cash-strapped company.
- there's a general aircraft pilot shortage. It's pointless purchasing manned variants of the JSF if there is no one to pilot them (am aware that the could conscript if the need arises and that the JSF has a side project to turn it into an autonomous drone though)
- it's a plane that wins battles but not wars. If you string out the US or it's allies it becomes obvious that the cost of the it's equipment makes it more likely you'll go bankrupt if the opposition manages to prolong the war (think of Afghanistan, Iraq, etc...). Ironically, it feels that many others realise this as well. Most rivals to the US are going asymmetric. Few people know the bigger picture except those at the top as well as though curious analysts at the bottom of the foodchain but if you examine the picture then you'll realise that the US is in far more trouble then most people realise
The only way to send a message so menacing was a swashbuckling victory in war. Crucially, however, Afghanistan was not enough: it was simply too weak a state. As prison bullies know, a fearsome reputation is not acquired by beating up the weakest in the yard. Or as Rumsfeld put it on the evening of 9/11, "We need to bomb something else to prove that we're, you know, big and strong and not going to be pushed around by these kinds of attacks."
Chinese tabloid newspaper the Global Times on Monday said China and India could work together “to form a buyers' bloc” to counter US sanctions on Iran.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said the US decision to end sanctions waivers had angered Washington's allies,

"People are not happy. China is not happy, Turkey is not happy, Russia is not happy. France is not happy. US allies are not happy that this is happening and they say that they will find ways of resisting it," Zarif told Fox News.
- the US has no genuine national security threat that would require something like the JSF? For the US to be invaded it requires a significant amphibious and power projection capability. Virtually no country on Earth except the US has this capability. Only if the US decides to have a civil war is it in genuine trouble. The primary reason why the US has such a large military is because it wants to impose a particular version of the world upon it? That can lead to the creation of an endless threat, deterrent, fight, and peace cycle?
https://www.wired.com/story/worldwide-threats-briefing-donald-trump-china-north-korea/
- the gun stills struggle to shoot straight
- ejection seat is a safety hazard to lighter pilots
- there are genuine concerns about the highly computerised/networked nature of the jet itself. They've already had problems like this with the F-22 Raptor. These caused complete shut down of many critical systems required for flight. The same concerns surround the JSF, secondary systems such as ALIS, etc...
- severe bouncing means that a pilot's head can hit the canopy during takeoff on an aircraft carrier. As a minimum, pilots will have temporal head pain prior to each launch
Before the jets are launched, the pilots increase the engine thrust. To keep the jets from rolling off the front of the ship before launch, they are held down with hold-back bars. The force of the thrust compresses the gear’s strut as it is being held down. When the hold-back bar is released and the jet is launched, the F-35C’s strut is unloaded, causing the nose to bounce up and down, jarring the pilot according to a Navy report that was leaked to Inside Defense in January 2017.
...
The problem is dangerous to the pilot. The Helmet-Mounted Display is unusually heavy, currently weighing in at 5.1 pounds, and when that’s combined with the forces generated during a catapult launch, the extra weight slams the pilot’s head back and forth. In 70 percent of F-35 catapult launches, pilots report moderate to severe pain in their heads and necks.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-f-35-is-a-terrible-fighter-bomber-and-attacker-and-unfit-for-aircraft-carriers-c6e36763574b
- if you don't get a headache from canopy bouncing then oxygen deprivation is the backup?
The plane was most recently hit with worries of pilot health.

Since May 2 2018, F-35 pilots on five occasions reported symptoms of hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation.

The Air Force says the F-35's backup oxygen system worked in each instance, and the pilot was able to land the plane safely.

'It could range to anything from headaches, to nausea, to color-blindness,' he told the AP.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6658797/US-F35-fighter-jets-fly-QUARTER-expected-life-structural-issues.html
During testing in 2016 on USS George Washington (CVN-73), F-35C pilots complained when the aircraft was catapulted from the carrier, the aircraft excessively bobbed up and down on its nose gear on its trip down the carrier’s deck making it impossible to read instruments, difficult to reach emergency controls and causing a certain amount of pain in pilots.

“Fleet pilots reported that the oscillations were so severe that they could not read flight critical data, an unacceptable and unsafe situation during a critical phase of flight. Most of the pilots locked their harness during the catapult shot which made emergency switches hard to reach, again creating, in their opinion, an unacceptable and unsafe situation,” read a December from the Pentagon’s director, Operational Test & Evaluation report.

“The U.S. Navy has informed the Program Office that it considers this deficiency to be a ‘must fix’ deficiency.”
https://news.usni.org/2017/02/16/f-35c-catapult-problem-next-week
- most simulations and tests for the plane are are unrealistic and provide a non-genuine perspective of what the planes performance will be like. It's almost like rigging an exam so that a student will pass?
Concerns about the F-35's performance have resulted partially from reports of simulations by RAND Corporation in which three regiments of Russian Sukhoi fighters defeat six F-22s by denying tanker refueling.[24]

As a result of these media reports, then Australian defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon requested a formal briefing from the Australian Department of Defence on the simulation. This briefing stated that the reports of the simulation were inaccurate and that it did not compare the F-35's performance against that of other aircraft.[25][26]

Andrew Hoehn, Director of RAND Project Air Force, made the following statement: "Recently, articles have appeared in the Australian press with assertions regarding a war game in which analysts from the RAND Corporation were involved. Those reports are not accurate. RAND did not present any analysis at the war game relating to the performance of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, nor did the game attempt detailed adjudication of air-to-air combat. Neither the game nor the assessments by RAND in support of the game undertook any comparison of the fighting qualities of particular fighter aircraft."[27]

Furthermore, Maj. Richard Koch, chief of USAF Air Combat Command's advanced air dominance branch is reported to have said that "I wake up in a cold sweat at the thought of the F-35 going in with only two air-dominance weapons" with an Aviation Week article casting an extremely skeptical eye over the (USAF) source of claims that the F-35 would be "400% more effective" than projected opponents.[28]

The experience of the JSF program has led to a more conservative and open-ended Future Vertical Lift program.[29]
All that money to blow up a tunnel
- even if it is the best jet fighter in the world there just aren't enough parts for the thing. It's said that the JSF can currently fly for about 30% of the time. Obviously, people are hoping that this will be fixed in future
April 26 (UPI) -- The lower-than-desired performance of the F-35 fighter plane is the result of supply chain issues, the General Accounting Office said in a report.

The 59-page report, released on Thursday, noted that the plane is unable to fly as often as required because of spare parts shortages and logistical problems in moving parts around the world.

GAO said that in the time period analyzed, May to November of 2018, F-35s were unable to fly 30 percent of the time because of shortages and mismatched parts, and that the Defense Department has an order backlog of about 4,300 parts.

Parts for the aircraft are made largely in the United States, but also in other NATO countries, and the report said the Defense Department has not fully determined which actions are required to close the pipeline gap between fighting requirements and the performance of the F-35 supply chain.
- the above wouldn't be problematic if it were reliable but it isn't? The maintenance time required per flight hour is much higher then inspected (though it's still in the early part of it's life). Imagine a machine which requires 50 hours of maintenance for every hour it was run and that's basically what what you have with the JSF
Given that the average F-35 combat aircraft is expected to fly 250 hours per year, simple arithmetic shows that Navair expects the F-35 to require, on average, 50.1 maintenance man-hours per flight hour – it would have required 41.75 MMH if it flew 300 flight hours, as originally planned. 

The US Air Force originally planned to fly its F-35s 300 FH per Primary Aircraft Inventory per year. Subsequently, it reduced the F-35A flying hours from 300 to 250 FH per PAI. 

That is several times as many maintenance hours as current front-line fast jet fighter operated by the US services, and also well over that of the F-22 Raptor, which “is required to achieve 12.0 direct maintenance man-hours per flight hour (DMMH/FH) at system maturity, which is defined to be when the F-22 fleet has accumulated 100,000 flight hours,” according to a US Air Force Association response to a story by the Washington Post. 

Facts: The F-22 is required to achieve In 2008 the F-22 achieved 18.1 DMMH/FH which then improved to 10.5 DMMH/FH in 2009. It’s important to recognize this metric is to be met at system maturity, which is projected to occur in late 2010. So the F-22 is better than the requirement well before maturity. 

Clearly, in FY2018 the F-35 will have only been in “operational” service for three or four years (IOC in mid-2015 and mid-2016), and so still a long way from maturity, but such a high number of maintenance hours will explode operating costs for its operators, who were long told the F-35 would be afford able to buy and to operate. 
The test teams have found that the hook point on the F-35C’s arresting gear is wearing out three times faster than it is supposed to. Though it is supposed to last a minimum of 15 landings, the longest a hook point has lasted in testing is five. The program is reportedly considering redesigning the arresting gear to be more robust.
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-f-35-is-a-terrible-fighter-bomber-and-attacker-and-unfit-for-aircraft-carriers-c6e36763574b
- if you read between the lines you suddenly realise that the stories regarding the F-35B/naval version may be true? Basically, they can't get a good lifespan out of it yet which is the reason why the navy isn't purchasing the aircraft in bigger numbers and are sticking with Superhornets or just moving on with development of a new aircraft?
A Pentagon report is warning that the U.S. Marine Corps' oldest F-35B Joint Strike Fighters could remain airworthy for just over a quarter of their expected lifespan due to 'serious structural problems'. 

According to Bloomberg one early version of the jet, known as 'early block F' and bought by the Marine Corps, could fly for just 2,100 flight hours, which the report says is 'well under' the expected service life of 8,000 hours.
- it's incredibly fragile. It's at the point whereby you have a hard time believing that it's war machine? That said, it follows in the footsteps of the F-22 Raptor, B-2 Spirit, etc? Ironically, the F-22 hasn't really seen any genuine combat?
All F-35s were grounded by the US Department of Defence because of an engine fire last month. One of the Pratt & Whitney engines broke apart, pushed through the top of the aeroplane, and caught fire while the pilot was preparing to take off. Chief test pilot Alan Norman says the fault may have been due to a fan blade which rubbed against a static engine part, but at this point it’s still being investigated. Hence, American commanders figured it was better to be safe than sorry, though the jets have since been given limited clearance to fly again.
- the tires only last half a dozen flights on aircraft carriers. Stealth aircraft are extremely maintenence intensive despite all the marketing hype
In August 2018, the nonprofit Project On Government Oversight (POGO) reported that senior officials developing the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the US armed forces were hiding dangerous flaws in the overdue and over-budget plane instead of fixing them.

According to a document obtained by POGO, F-35 officials re-categorized major design flaws instead of fixing them in order to claim that the program had completed its development phase.

"Several of these flaws, like the lack of any means for a pilot to confirm a weapon's target data before firing, and damage to the plane caused by the tailhook on the Air Force's variant, have potentially serious implications for safety and combat effectiveness," the report stated.

According to a Pentagon assessment released in January, the F-35 program has multiple vulnerabilities that have not been remedied and improvements "are still not translating into improved availability," Sputnik previously reported.

The F-35B fighter jets, one of three F-35 variants, have issues with Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS), a computerized maintenance tool, which transmits "aircraft health and maintenance action information to the appropriate users," according to the American aerospace and defense company Lockheed Martin.

In addition, the jets have "unacceptable" accuracy problems in weapons systems used in air-to-ground attacks, the report states. Other issues with the F-35B jets include tires that wear out too quickly, refueling probes that break off in mid-flight and life support systems that do not provide adequate oxygen to pilots while inflight.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time. The F-35B had problems with its tires wearing out too fast, while this February the fleet was grounded because of a crack in an engine turbine blade. It was grounded again in June when a Marine pilot had to make an emergency landing due to a mid-air oil leak.
- RADAR shuts down periodically and requires regular reboots much like a regular computer? A genuinely bizarre and funny problem?
- the US DoD has sort of half admitted defeat. They're saying there won't be a Joint project for the next generation aircraft. The JSF program has been a semi-success/semi-failure
- there are some people who consider the overall cost of the JSF program to be a problem for national security rather then a protector of it. What's the point of of having a state of the art defense equipment that bankrupts you?
Then there are those who oppose the whole idea of spending more than Australia’s GDP (adjusted, of course, for purchasing power) on a new fighter jet. You don't have to be a pacifist to argue that the US might not need the 2,443 craft it has committed to buy, or indeed that it does not need such an over-engineered plane at all. Older models could be modified, and budgets slimmed. Or every homeless person in the USA could get a house. Or, or, or...fill in your favoured political project here.
- the wings occasionally tip for no apparent reason (it's similar to a car that can only turn right but not left)? Thankfully, the plane is mostly dependent on stealth to fight and not pure aerodynamics
On the other hand, wing drop is no longer a performance issue for the F-35, contrary to claims in some quarters, our authoritative source at the Pentagon tells us. The issue is, as almost always, much more complex than that simple statement indicates, but it’s been 18 months since the issue surfaced and software fixes leave the Joint Strike Fighter in fine shape, this source says.

What happened? Basically, new algorithmns were written, tested in the trans-sonic envelope where most of the problems occurred and the services found a solution that didn’t completely eliminate all drop at all times but left the plane performing to the highest standards achievable. In short, they found a problem and fixed it to a standard all three services could live with. 
- which leads me to the following. We've established that there are time when it may have only been able to turn right but not left. There's also been times when it couldn't go fast either?
Pilots of certain versions of the F-35 also can’t fully control the aircraft’s pitch, roll, and yaw after completing certain maneuvers — and in some conditions, the aircraft’s night vision camera displays green horizontal lines that make it difficult for pilots to see the horizon.
Here’s something the public didn’t know until today: If one of the U.S. military’s new F-35 stealth fighters has to climb at a steep angle in order to dodge an enemy attack, design flaws mean the plane might suddenly tumble out of control and crash.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/america-is-stuck-with-a-dollar400-billion-stealth-fighter-that-cant-fight
At extremely high altitudes, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ versions of the F-35 jet can only fly at supersonic speeds for short bursts of time before there is a risk of structural damage and loss of stealth capability, a problem that may make it impossible for the Navy’s F-35C to conduct supersonic intercepts.

The Defense Department does not intend to field a fix for the problem, which influences not only the F-35’s airframe and the low-observable coating that keeps it stealthy, but also the myriad antennas located on the back of the plane that are currently vulnerable to damage, according to documents exclusively obtained by Defense News.
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-f-35-could-reportedly-break-itself-if-it-goes-too-f-1835498077
Another issue is that a blown tire may damage the plane’s hydraulic lines, potentially causing causing a loss of control during the landing process. This in turn could lead to what the Pentagon calls “runway departure” and the possible loss of aircraft.  The issue has reportedly been fixed in the -C Navy carrier version but Defense News says it may never be fixed in the Air Force and Marine Corps versions.
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-f-35-could-reportedly-break-itself-if-it-goes-too-f-1835498077
- but wait there's a problem here as well because the RAM coating comes off when you fly faster and aircraft heats up (similar to the F-117 Nighthawk, F-22 Raptor, B-2 Spirit, etc... It was said that that RAM was somehow supposed to be baked into the surface but it's obvious that this may be multi-faceted)?
Also, some versions of the F-35 can’t accelerate to supersonic speed without melting their own tails or shedding the expensive coating that helps to give the planes their radar-evading qualities.
The military and Lockheed have identified possible fixes to all the problems Defense News revealed. A new coating could minimize heat damage. Better flight-control software could mitigate the risk of a crash during hard maneuvers. “We expect this item to be resolved or downgraded,” Greg Ulmer, a Lockheed vice president, told Defense News in reference to crash risk.

But if the program doesn’t apply the fixes before F-35 production picks up, it’s possible the deficiencies will become “baked in” on scores or even hundreds of F-35s. Retroactively fixing deficient jets could cost billions of dollars.
- if you look at the canopy there is limited visibility around the back in particular. This is supposed to be fixed with the addition of Distributed Aperture System (DAS). The irony is that this system has been providing a lot of false positives. In a plane that has limited weapons carrying capability and a focus on stealth and Beyond Visual Range (BVR) combat this is a big problem
“During shore-based testing in overcast starlight conditions, [helmet-mounted display] symbology brightness and video contrast at the max settings and while adjusting video brightness, the pilots were unable to generate a reliable image of the horizon at any time, or to display a scene with texturing critical for peripheral motion cues,” the government document reads.
- Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) was supposed to diagnose problems. Thus far, it seems to create as many problems as it solves?
- the acquisition costs might have dropped but it costs a lot to run. It basically tracks what I had originally hypothesised a while back. It's identical to the F-22 and B-2 stealth aircraft programs. Even if it has no peer it is very fragile and very costly especially in an age where many countries are moving towards UCAV which which are stealthier then the JSF/F-35, more reliable, much cheaper to run, etc... Even in the reconnaissance space there are far cheaper alternatives that can get the job done. Combine alternative solutions together and you can get 5th-Gen capabilities for a fraction of the price of actually acquiring something like the JSF
Over the last few years it has become so cheap to launch micro-satellites with high quality optics that companies like Planet can provide an image of anywhere on the planets surface at minimum of once a day - with a resolution that is useful for surveillance of IADS.

The only reason you would want an aircraft is if you needed persistent or real-time surveillance - for example trying to catch Iran attaching mines to ships (which is how the Global Hawk was downed).

So I don't believe Israel would need to fly a F-35 over Tehran.
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=55793&p=422979#p422979
The one thing that usually downrates the F-35 the most is its huge price tag. The unit cost is currently about $150 million (for the VTOL version) and a maintenance cost of about $31 000 per flight hour is extremely expensive compared to the very capable 4.5 generation fighters out there. For instance, the Eurofighter Typhoon costs about $110 million dollars per unit, with a much lower maintenance cost ($18 000 per hour). So the price is currently very high, but we must remember that the cost is (partially) this high because the engineers basically developed three different aircraft in the project. The price per unit will be reduced when all the planned fighters have been built – currently 2400 to the US and a couple of hundreds more to foreign buyers. This was the original idea of the F-35; produce many, giving it a lower unit cost.
Plus, stealth isn't cheap. The CBO warns that: “Other stealthy aircraft, such as the B-2 bomber and the F-22 and F-35A fighters, have experienced cost increases that resulted in lower production rates and decreased total purchases. Containing costs for the PCA aircraft may be similarly difficult.”

This astronomical price tag could become a serious problem for the Pentagon. The Congressional Budget Office warns that the PCA jet could become so expensive, “the Air Force could decide that the PCA aircraft’s cutting-edge design is unaffordable and instead opt to purchase more F-35As.” Alternately, the Air Force could choose to modernize the F-22 airframe with newer F-35 electronics, as Lockheed Martin has proposed doing for Japan.
"F-35 aircraft performance is falling short of warfighter requirements -- that is, aircraft cannot perform as many missions or fly as often as required," the GAO found. "This lower-than-desired aircraft performance is due largely to F-35 spare parts shortages and difficulty in managing and moving parts around the world."
...
"We are investing, taking aggressive action and partnering with the government and our supply base to achieve shared cost reduction goals, while also improving readiness to meet the Pentagon's 80 percent mission capable rate," the company said in a statement.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/25/politics/pentagon-gao-patrick-shanahan-f-35/index.html
"You've got to, in some way, modernize here. I think the fear of the Air Force, before the F-35 got going, is that it would [meet] the same fate as the F-22. [But] we are now at a point with the F-35 where the price is coming down. We are doing everything that we can to drive down the cost of sustainment, to make this a long-term commitment. I hope we're at a point now where the commitment is high enough to recapitalize the Air Force with F-35s" over time, while attending to the F-15C dilemma, she said.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/05/20/air-force-wants-both-f-35-and-f-15ex-if-forced-choose-its-no-contest-secaf.html
Also this paper about a hypothetical aircraft with various planforms : 
https://www.researchgate.net/publicatio ... R_AIRCRAFT
F-35 JSF vs Eurofighter Typhoon
- it's damn expensive. The entire program is more then Australia's GDP! It's at the point where you start to think whether or not it's simply more worthwhile to bribe your enemies to leave you alone?
The F-35 has become the fighter that is more expensive than Australia. This is because the programme will eventually cost more than $1,500 billion - a sum greater than Australia's GDP. At the same time, it is an aircraft that has been panned by the world's leading aviation experts as overpriced, overweight and under-armed. One report has claimed the only thing stealthy about the F-35 is its price.
- despite what is being said there are a lot of worries about the status of the program. Not only that but geo-political issues are playing a factor here as well. Spreading the risk of investment across multiple countries and companies was supposed to reduce risk but it's sort of increased it? Turkey has basically been banned for the foreseeable future with their Russian S-400 anti-aircraft system purchase, Canada is borderline at the moment for commercial, political, etc... reasons, Italy (and possibly Denmark/Norway/Canada) will either slow down or reduce their order for primarily work share/economic reasons, Denmark and possibly UK has to alter /reduce their order to factor in reduced availability, high cost of the JSF platform, and increased entertainment costs, while Germany, Turkey, UK, France, and Spain are also working on their own competing platforms. Singapore has only put in a small order thus far to see how things pan out. Even the US has reduced their order rate in their 2019 budget from 54 each year to 48. Israel seems to be in a similar predicament. Most countries seem to have either stabilised on a particular order number or reduced it over time?
reduced jsf order 2019
https://www.airforce-technology.com/news/usaf-boeing-f-15ex-f-35/
singapore jsf order
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/singapore-f35-joint-strike-fighter-announcement-buy-small-number-11147932
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/singapore-commits-to-small-f-35-procurement-455116/
italy reduced jsf order
https://www.lastampa.it/2019/03/12/esteri/italy-suspends-f-orders-owes-us-million-euros-nwb5IhQFIb5tASj8tPghrI/pagina.html
http://www.defense-aerospace.com/article-view/release/142761/cut-in-jsf-order-would-reduce-italian-workshare.html
denmark reduced jsf order 2019
Danish JSF plans in trouble
https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1380301
https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/farnborough/2018/07/10/as-it-takes-on-f-35-denmark-prepares-to-halt-global-operations/
israel jsf order
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II_Israeli_procurement
https://web.archive.org/web/20100913171759/http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Allies%2BIsraeli%2Bdeal/3503418/story.html
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/01/31/germany-officially-knocks-f-35-out-of-competition-to-replace-tornado/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/01/uk-may-not-able-buy-new-fleet-f-35-fighter-jets-unless-black/
https://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/boeing-reassures-its-still-in-the-canadian-fighter-459552/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-23/australia-to-buy-58-more-joint-strike-fighters/5405236
Built by Lockheed Martin, the F-35 is a stealth aircraft developed by an international consortium of allied militaries as part of a deal that specifically rejects the application of traditional industrial benefits. Canada has been a member of the program since 2006.

The competition for new fighter jets is expected to be launched by the end of the month. However, the U.S. government is refusing to bid as long as Ottawa requires the winner to invest the equivalent of the acquisition cost under Canada’s Industrial and Technological Benefits (ITB) Policy, according to a letter obtained by defence analyst Richard Shimooka and published in a report by the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

“If the ITB requirement remains in effect, an F-35 offer will not be provided,” said the letter from Vice-Admiral Mathias Winter of the U.S. Navy and dated Dec. 18, 2018. “We look forward to Canada reaffirming its status as an F-35 partner and hope the ITB issue will be resolved quickly so the F-35 is able to compete.”
https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2019/05/06/russia-pitches-turkey-the-su-57-fighter-jet-if-f-35-deal-with-us-collapses/
Turkey has legitimate air defense needs. The United States, since 2012, has offered the Patriot air defense system as an alternative to the S-400, but Turkey has rejected that offer. With the S-400 scheduled to arrive in Turkey in July and the F-35s scheduled to arrive in November, it is time for President Erdogan to choose. It is our hope he will choose to abandon the S-400, defend Turkish skies with the Patriot system and save the F-35 arrangement.

If President Erdogan fails to make this choice and accepts delivery of the S-400, sanctions will be imposed as required by United States law under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. Sanctions will hit Turkey’s economy hard — rattling international markets, scaring away foreign direct investment and crippling Turkey’s aerospace and defense industry.

Further, no F-35s will ever reach Turkish soil. And Turkish participation in the F-35 program, including manufacturing parts, repairing and servicing the fighters, will be terminated, taking Turkish companies out of the manufacturing and supply chain for the program.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/opinion/turkey-united-states-f35conflict.html
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/australia
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/belgium
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/canada
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/denmark
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/finland
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/israel
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/italy
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/japan
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/netherlands
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/norway
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/republic-of-korea
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/switzerland
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/turkey
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/united-kingdom
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/united-states
- there are some classic sales techniques that have been baked into the JSF program: too big to fail, the more you by the cheaper it gets, loss leader whereby the cost of running the jet probably exceeds the purchase price, etc... This is stuff that you'd expect from your local supermarket, not something that you would use for a critical piece of defence technology? A huge irony is that the program has been marred with procurement scandals. It makes you wonder, if the JSF is so superior why does it require corruption and bribes to ensure that people purchase it?
- it's called the JSF but nearly all partner nations have concerns about not having autonomy due to kill switches that may be in place (it's a Joint fighter for the US not other nations)? Note that many participants in the JSF program have backup options. This includes Turkey/T-FX, South Korea and Indonesia/K-FX, Japan/F-3, etc... As an aside, it finally makes sense why many countries in conflict areas run mixed fleets. It gives them strategic autonomy if a supplier decides to cut them off for whatever reason while having the best of everything. Good strategy if you can afford it
The F-35 fighter jet project has been hit by yet another set of controversies including a kerfuffle over US data-slurping, flight control problems and its stealth coating melting at supersonic speeds.

Once described by The Register as the ultimate vendor lock-in project, the F-35 is sold by Lockheed Martin as a package: not only do you buy the jets and their associated spares and training packages, you also buy its Autonomous Logistics Information System (ALIS).

ALIS is a spares and training management package. It tracks the state of the aeroplanes themselves, interfaces with onboard diagnostic systems to check system and component health, and orders spare parts as and when needed. As you can imagine, having access to ALIS gives you an instant and incredibly detailed picture of whether an F-35 squadron is capable of flying and fighting – or not.

Naturally, some countries buying the F-35 aren't happy about this. And US news outlet Defense News exclusively reported that not only are problems with ALIS still rolling on, years after they were first spotted and bug-reported, but a number of countries threatened to pull out altogether unless the US developed a product to stop critical data from being sent back to America.

The product, called Sovereign Data Management (SDM), acts in conceptual terms like a firewall and stops detailed mission planning data from being sent to the US. The report also stated that next year's planned release of ALIS, v3.6, is expected to have this filtering baked in.
- concurrency doesn't work on the older versions of the F-35 as it's uneconomical to upgrade them to the later/latest standard. It's easier to purchase a brand new jet?
More than 100 of those early F-35s are B-models that cannot safely fly fast or maneuver hard. They’ll need fixing. It won’t be cheap. The military was already spending billions of dollars modifying older F-35s. That bill could grow to cover the flaws Defense News revealed.

Fixes could take a while. “The services will have to wait five years or more to get a fully functional aircraft, if they ever do,” Dan Grazier, an analyst with the Project on Government Oversight in Washington, D.C., told The Daily Beast.

In the meantime, the armed services possess scores of F-35s they cannot safely send into high-tech combat, according to Grazier. “The program is definitely not ready for active service.”
The reason that there are so many different sub-configurations of the three main F-35 variants spread across the U.S. military at all is the result of a concept known as "concurrency." The Pentagon had billed this idea, which involved stepping up production of the jets and buying dozens of low-rate production examples while simultaneously planning to implement any necessary upgrades across the fleet as time went on, as a cost-saving measure.

This has not turned out to be the case and there are now questions about whether it will ultimately turn out to be practical to upgrade any F-35s still running the older software, regardless of specific variant. If this comes to pass, the U.S. military will have sunk billions into jets that will never be combat capable and may be increasingly irrelevant even for training purposes as newer Joint Strike Fighters become increasingly distinct from the earlier examples.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26269/usmcs-older-f-35bs-may-only-be-able-to-fly-around-a-quarter-of-their-expected-service-life
- the financial stealthiness of the JSF program is truly remarkable. It's only just come off the production line and already money is being spent upgrading it
https://aviationweek.com/combat-aircraft/defense-department-lockheed-eye-expansion-f-35-modernization-plan
- stealth aircraft rely on advanced technology not to be found. The problem is if one of them crashes how do you find it and stop critical secrets from being uncovered by enemy states or is the joke that no one can find a stealth aircraft?
- it doesn't matter whether it's good or bad any country who purchases it is stuck with it. What's funny is that the F-16 was built with modularity and customisability in mind. The F-35 is more difficult to upgrade locally owing to it's architecture based on what I've read. It effectively locks you into a contract and de-facto alliance with the US
The new system will also allow the IDF to install Israeli-built datalinks and defensive avionics systems such as radar-jamming pods. An official told Aviation Week the IAF expects the advantages of the F-35’s low radar cross section will be “good for five to ten years” before adversaries develop countermeasures. There already exist methods for detecting stealth fighters, including long-range infrared sensors, electromagnetic sensors, and low bandwidth radars (though all have significant limitations), and more exotic technologies such as quantum radar are also under development.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/israel-might-just-have-best-version-f-35-59007
LE BOURGET, Paris — As European defense firms drum up publicity about the sixth-generation fighters they plan to build, Lockheed Martin executives promoted the F-35 as the proven fifth-gen option that could blur the lines with sixth-gen planes as it is upgraded into the 2020s and beyond.

“It’s a compliment to the F-35 that many countries are looking to replicate fifth gen and then extending that to sixth gen,” Michele Evans, Lockheed’s head of aeronautics, told Defense News at the Paris Air Show on June 19. “I think it really does reflect on the value of what F-35 is bringing to the pilots and the battlespace. In terms of technology, we’re not going to let F-35 go static.”

During a Monday briefing, Lockheed laid out a series of upgrades that could be adopted during the jet’s “Block 4” modification phase in the mid 2020s.
...
Also in TR3, Lockheed plans to move to an open-architecture backbone for the F-35, which will allow it to more quickly boost the jet’s capabilities with new software.

“You’ll see year over year over year we’re going to have an incremental update,” Ulmer said. “Rather than biting it all off [at one time] and waiting for a big-bang tech insertion, we’re going to trickle that out.”
https://www.defensenews.com/digital-show-dailies/paris-air-show/2019/06/21/lockheed-hypes-f-35s-upgrade-plan-as-interest-in-sixth-gen-fighters-grows/
- the JSF is supposed to be stealthy in the IR part of the spectrum but occasionally gets really hot
On 23 June 2014, an F-35A's engine caught fire just before a training flight at Eglin Air Force Base. The pilot escaped unharmed. Engine parts from the burned aircraft were discovered on the runway, indicating a substantial engine failure.[510] The accident caused all training to be halted on 25 June, and all flights halted on 3 July.[274][275][276] The fleet was returned to flight on 15 July with restrictions in the flight envelope.[277] Preliminary findings suggested that excessive rubbing of the engine fan blades created increased stress and wear that lead to the catastrophic failure of the fan.[511] In early June 2015, the USAF Air Education and Training Command (AETC) issued its official report, which blamed the failure on the third stage rotor of the engine's fan module. The report stated that "pieces of the failed rotor arm cut through the engine's fan case" and eventually out "through the aircraft's upper fuselage". Pratt & Whitney, the engine manufacturer, addressed this by applying an extended "rub-in" to increase the gap between the second stator and the third rotor integral arm seal. It also altered the design to pre-trench the stator. Both were to be completed by early 2016. The damage cost an estimated US$50 million. All aircraft resumed operations within 25 days of the mishap.[512]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-35_Lightning_II#Accidents_and_notable_incidents
https://www.military.com/dodbuzz/2010/03/26/jsf-not-too-hot-for-carriers
- the JSF is supposed to sneak up on targets quietly. Unfortunately, it sometimes leaves a loud footprint
The Dutch found two big problems with the Joint Strike Fighter, It is a full 21 Dba louder than the F16 during takeoffs and landings. The JSF can actually break through the sound-barrier while still accelerating from airports - thus supersonic booms would be much closer to residents. And because it has such short take-off and landing-abilities, it's also much noisier than the F16.
Under the current laws to protect this densely-populated European country's residents from night-flights - banned for seven-hour stretches at all but two airports -- NATO pilots thus would only be able to carry out 168 flights a year at each of the three Dutch NATO airports with JSFs. They now carry out 4,200 practice flights a year with the F16s at each airport.The Gripen does not appear to have this problem.
Is the US Joint Strike fighter too loud for Dutch airports?
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/267715
https://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/roar-deal-worries-over-loud-jsf-f-35-planes-for-darwin/news-story/ec56ee5002b002b717d15de5be4ebf9f
https://www.defencetalk.com/military/forums/t/what-is-the-real-noise-level-of-the-f-35.8989/
- it's virtually impossible to get straight answers regarding costing of the JSF. Watch it carefully and you'll realise it keeps on changing in ways that make no sense? There are also some really funny aspects to the pricing arrangements as well. Basically, even if the cost of purchasing is getting lower the cost of running is so high that anyone who is considering purchasing it has to think twice. That may be why the US DoD is interested in a mixed fleet and possibly reducing purchases of 5th-Gen aicraft such as the JSF (the same thing was done with the F-22 and B-2 programs)
"The Lot 11 agreement brought the price per F-35A down to less than $90 million "
Baloney. The Pentagon does not use fixed price contracts and whatever whatever multiple cost-plus contracts for the largest acquisition program in history that they do have have never been audited by the Defense Audit Contract Agency. 
How about some independent journalism instead of parroting bogus Lockheed claims?
purchase cost superhornet
maintenance per flight hour jet fighter
f-35 cost with engine
https://dtbnguyen.blogspot.com/2017/02/life-in-syria-why-jsf-isnt-worth-it-and.html
- much of the discussion about the status of the programs relies on people not checking their facts. That's why there's so much confusion and gibberish out there. A good example of this is that the F-15, F-16, F-18, etc... had similar problems as the F-35 during development. If you check it's obviously not the case. Those programs didn't have anywhere near the same level of difficulties associated with the F-35 program
..."The 13 deficiencies include:

• The F-35’s logistics system currently has no way for foreign F-35 operators to keep their secret data from being sent to the United States.
• The spare parts inventory shown by the F-35’s logistics system does not always reflect reality, causing occasional mission cancellations.
• Cabin pressure spikes in the cockpit of the F-35 have been known to cause barotrauma, the word given to extreme ear and sinus pain.
• In very cold conditions — defined as at or near minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit — the F-35 will erroneously report that one of its batteries have failed, sometimes prompting missions to be aborted.
• Supersonic flight in excess of Mach 1.2 can cause structural damage and blistering to the stealth coating of the F-35B and F-35C.
• After doing certain maneuvers, F-35B and F-35C pilots are not always able to completely control the aircraft’s pitch, roll and yaw.
• If the F-35A and F-35B blows a tire upon landing, the impact could also take out both hydraulic lines and pose a loss-of-aircraft risk.
• A “green glow” sometimes appears on the helmet-mounted display, washing out the imagery in the helmet and making it difficult to land the F-35C on an aircraft carrier.
• On nights with little starlight, the night vision camera sometimes displays green striations that make it difficult for all variants to see the horizon or to land on ships.
• The sea search mode of the F-35’s radar only illuminates a small slice of the sea’s surface.
• When the F-35B vertically lands on very hot days, older engines may be unable to produce the required thrust to keep the jet airborne, resulting in a hard landing....
...The list of deficiencies as a whole is in some ways encouraging, the currently serving aviator said, because it looks like the issues are being identified by the engineers and technicians working on the program.

“I think what you see in that document is an airplane that fell behind schedule, that was rushed to get back up to schedule under immense political and industry pressure. They had a lot of next-gen[eration] technologies all at once, and they’re working through what all of that looks like together,” the aviator said.
f-16 development problem
Status of the Air Force's F-16 Aircraft Program
https://www.gao.gov/products/PSAD-78-36
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a21587/1977-when-the-f-16-was-americas-problem-child/
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/38837/why-does-it-take-so-long-to-develop-modern-military-jets
f-15 development problem
https://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/f-35s-critics-repeat-history-of-trashing-the-next-military-aircraft/
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/problem-f-22-raptor-might-not-be-fixable-57397
The Hidden Troubles of the F-35 [DefenseNews]
http://www.f-16.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=55673
https://www.defensenews.com/smr/hidden-troubles-f35/
https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/692307.pdf
http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2019/June%202019/Lockheed-Reported-Deficiencies-in-F-35-Already-Fixed-or-Being-Resolved.aspx
http://www.airforcemag.com/Features/Pages/2019/June%202019/Lockheed-Exec-With-Time-Turkish-F-35-Ouster-Wont-Hurt.aspx
- there seems to be literally forums that are designed for promoting and propagandizing the JSF. A good example of this is f-16.net People who speak ill of the JSF are banned on this forum in one way or another, even allied aircraft and programs don't seem to be that well respected, and according to some stories pilots who speak ill of either the F-22 or F-35 are banned from flying in future? Ironically, more balanced or fervently anti-JSF forums are also available out there
http://f-16.net
- there have been so many broken promises that it's difficult to know what or who to believe anymore. Just wait and see seems to be the best approach?
broken promises f-35 jsf
THERE HAVE BEEN a lot of sketchy claims made about the long-delayed, over-budget F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, history's most expensive weapon program. But this one takes the cake. According to Stephen O'Bryan, a vice president at F-35-maker Lockheed Martin, the radar-evading jet fighter will actually get stealthier over time – without any upgrades.

To be clear, every other stealth warplane has steadily lost its ability to dodge enemy radars owing to wear and tear on the plane's special skin coating. Not so the F-35, O'Bryan said.

In the latest issue of Air Force magazine, O'Bryan insisted the single-engine JSF, which is projected to cost $1 trillion to develop, buy and maintain, is fundamentally different than its predecessors. "The surface material smooths out over time, slightly reducing the F-35’s original radar signature, according to the Lockheed Martin official," John Tirpak wrote.

With the older F-22, B-2 and F-117 stealth warplanes, the opposite happened. All three of the previous models saw their surfaces gradually degrade and all required expensive upgrades just to maintain their radar-avoiding qualities at the original levels. In light of other empty promises Lockheed has made regarding the F-35, it's highly unlikely the new jet will buck this historical trend.

Looking back, the 59 Lockheed-made F-117s, retired in 2008, was by all accounts a nightmare to maintain – a consequence of its 1970s-vintage technology. The F-117 owed its stealthiness to its angular shape, putty and later tape to cover radar-reflective seams in the fuselage and an external coating of radar-absorbing material.

The F-117s were hand-built by Lockheed, each to a slightly different design with varying levels of stealth. Maintaining them was said to be more of an art than a science. Over time, that only increased the jets' differences – and their visibility to sensors. Starting in 1999, the Air Force spent roughly $1 million per plane to normalize the fleet. "Standardizing the configuration will preserve radar cross-section performance," the Federation of American Scientists explained.
...
But it's worth noting the extreme pressure on O'Bryan and other Lockheed execs to extol, even exaggerate, the F-35's capabilities. When JSF development began around 15 years ago, only the U.S. possessed stealth warplanes. But today Russia, Japan and most notably China are also working on their own radar-defeating models. It's no longer enough for the F-35 to merely duplicate the skills of older U.S. stealth jets; it must significantly improve on them in order to stay ahead of foreign rivals. In this context it's not hard to see why O'Bryan would promise the impossible, or at least improbable.

That said, Lockheed officials have made unlikely claims before. Back when the F-35 was still on the drawing board, the firm said the new plane would perform better than conventional fighters such as the F-16 – and would be cheaper, to boot. Neither claim turned out to be true. Nor did the F-35 enter service in 2008, as originally promised.

So when O'Bryan insists his company's new stealth fighter will dodge a problem that has vexed every previous radar-evading jet, it's wise to be very, very skeptical.
https://www.wired.com/2012/11/f-35-gets-stealthier/
ROME — The head of Italy's association of defense firms has launched a blistering attack on the U.S. and Lockheed Martin, accusing them of breaking promises made to Italy about workshare on the F-35 program.

Guido Crosetto, the head of Italian aerospace and defense industry association AIAD, said the U.S. "had not honored promises" made since Italy joined the program, hurting Italian firms as well as threatening the livelihood of Italy's fledgling F-35 maintenance center.

In June 2002, Italy became a Level 2 JSF partner by committing to invest $1 billion in the program's system development and demonstration stage.

Rome currently plans to buy 90 aircraft. In return, Italy was told its workshare would likely reach around 65 percent of its investment. "Today we are at less than 20 percent," said Crosetto.

Crosetto, who was a government defense ministry undersecretary between 2008 and 2011, said if Italy falls behind on F-35 workshare, political consequences would follow.

"Back then, I staked my reputation in parliament by talking about the jobs and technology Italy would gain through choosing the F-35 program," he said. "How easy will it be to defend these choices in parliament now?"
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2017/02/10/italy-s-defense-industry-chief-attacks-f-35-broken-promises/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/if-the-f-35-fighter-jet-is-so-awesome-why-is-it-so-hated/
https://www.taxpayer.net/national-security/f-35-resources/
- China may be a near peer rival to the US but it's an unofficial partner in the JSF program?
The US used to be the largest rare-earths-producing country in 1990, but China has stolen the crown long ago. In 2018, Beijing mined 120,000 tons of the materials – a 15,000-ton increase compared to a year earlier, while the US produced just 15,000 tons in total. China holds 44 million tons of the elements if its reserves, while the US just 1.4 million tons.
The US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into Honeywell’s export and import procedures after it was found that the firm used Chinese parts on the F-35 aircraft.

Besides using $2 magnets on the aircrafts radar system, landing gears and other hardware, Honeywell also used simple thermal sensors that were made in China in 2009 and 2010.

The Pentagon twice waived laws banning Chinese-built components in U.S. weapons in 2012 and 2013 for parts supplied by Honeywell for the $392 billion Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 program, according to a Reuters report.

The sensors are part of the power thermal management system that Honeywell builds to cool the F-35, start its engines and pressurize the cabin, said Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the Pentagon's F-35 program office was quoted as saying.

The equipment is “a common electrical sensor found on a circuit card that is widely available in commercial applications around the world,” a Honeywell Spokesperson said.

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Maureen Schumann, the Pentagon had previously granted national security waivers to allow foreign-built parts on other aircraft. However she refused to divulge any further information.

The thermal sensors were simple parts that did not include any software and were not programmable. There were no risks associated with the use of the sensors, according to DellaVedova, the spokesman for the F-35 program office.

He added that all the Chinese-built sensors would eventually be replaced on the F-35s, but the process had not yet been completed. He had no immediate information on how many Chinese-built sensors were installed on the planes.

“Honeywell did produce this component in China for a short period of time, and proactively and voluntarily decided to move production to a U.S. facility in 2012 after consulting with the Department of Defense and our partners. We believe we have followed all applicable U.S. laws and regulations relating to the manufacturing of defense-related components in China,” Scott Sayres, a Honeywell spokesman was quoted as saying.
https://www.defenseworld.net/news/9817/Honeywell_Under_Investigation_For_Using_Chinese_Sensors__Magnets_on_F_35
- the irony behind all the propaganda of the JSF program is that I think most people would have accepted if governments had simply said our old jets were getting old and we needed new ones. It would have been easier and simpler and probably more acceptable then what has happened?
- note, many/most of the problems mentioned are being fixed, worked around, etc... but we've heard all that all before? Wink!?!?
Frasier - Wink

Random Stuff:
- as usual thanks to all of the individuals and groups who purchase and use my goods and services
- given the tensions between the US and China I was interested in Chinese media. Ironically, much of what I see indicates that Chinese media is actually more balanced/less anti-Western then Russian and Western media? 
Pick topic, blame Russians, profit - ‘Guide’ to modern Western journalism by Assange
N. Korea slams ‘US gangster-like moves’ for domination, blames ‘war-thirsty Trump’
‘Unprecedented pressure’ on RT in America, we’re being forced out – Editor-in-Chief
‘No to occupation’ - Protesters demand end of US intervention in Afghanistan
CCTV+ 
- latest in science and technology
New Vulnerability Found in Major Human Viruses
Exomoons: Home to Extra-Terrestrial Life?
The app teaching anorexics to eat again
- latest in finance and politics
- latest in defense and intelligence
Commander Hails High Detection Power of Iran's Newly-Developed Missile Shield
- latest in animal news
- latest in music and entertainment

Random Quotes:
- Canada now finds itself stuck in a fight with China. It’s a fight Canada never asked for, but China’s nature as a totalitarian state made it inevitable. It was a matter of when, not whether.

And in this fight, Canada is at a clear disadvantage. But Ottawa can’t simply roll over. If it does, China will know that when it pushes, we will cave in.

Huawei and its 5G mobile-network equipment present a target for Ottawa. The government has said cabinet will decide before the fall election whether it will allow Huawei equipment to be used in next-generation networks here. There are believed to be strong reasons to decide against Huawei 5G on national-security grounds, a conclusion reached by Australia and the United States.

Until recently, the name of the game in Ottawa was avoiding giving offence to Beijing, in the hope that corporate Canada would be rewarded. After Meng and canola, the game has changed.
- Pompeo and other American officials have been threatening other countries that the US would cut off the flow of intelligence to them if they allowed Huawei to participate in the 5G rollouts.
...
In March, it was reported that the American envoy to Germany, Richard Grenell, had written to German Economy Minister Peter Altmeier, saying that if any Chinese vendors were allowed to supply equipment for the 5G networks in Germany, then the US would cut down on its intelligence co-operation with Berlin.

Only Australia and New Zealand have fallen in line with Washington's dictates, but Wellington has indicated that the initial refusal for telco Spark to use Huawei gear is not the end of the matter.

That stance was reiterated by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during a one-day China visit in April. Huawei sued the US on 7 March, seeking to be reinstated as a telco supplier in the country.

Claims about lack of separation between the core and the RAN of a 5G network were shown to be incorrect last November when, as iTWire reported, a 5G trial in Auckland conducted jointly by Huawei and New Zealand telco Spark used a Huawei 5G NR (New Radio on both the C-band and mmWave) and a 4G Radio Access Network, both of which were deployed by using dedicated hardware connected to the Cisco Evolved Packet Core, with each component isolated.

Similar claims have been made by the director of the Australian Signals Directorate, Mike Burgess, and Nigel Phair, director of UNSW Canberra Cyber, as pointed out by Dr Mark Gregory, a network expert from RMIT University.
- There is nothing new in trying to figure out Trump. His appeal and his personality have been the subject of countless analyses and speculations since long before he ran for President. Yet the mysteries continue. Why do people like him? Why does he act so badly?

Charles Blow of the New York Times produced a thoughtful explanation of Trump’s popular appeal a couple of weeks ago in an opinion column entitled “Trumpism Extols Its Folk Hero”. Blow believes that Trump has become a “folk hero”, that rare person who “fights the establishment, often in devious, destructive and even deadly ways,” while “those outside that establishment cheer as the folk hero brings the beast to its knees.” Because the folk hero engages in the risky David vs. Goliath struggle against the awesomely powerful “establishment”, his personal sins are forgiven: “his lying, corruption, sexism and grift not only do no damage, they add to his legend.”


Thus the persistent belief among Trump’s critics that exposing his manifest dishonesty will finally awaken his base to reality is mistaken. His ability to get away with every possible form of cheating is part of his appeal, because he is cheating the establishment, the elite, the “deep state”, the “them” that is not “us”.

For his fans, the Mueller report is only the latest example of this extraordinary success. Despite years of investigation, Trump skates. It’s not important whether he was exonerated or not. What matters is that he can claim he was exonerated and go on being President, no matter what the report says, no matter what he actually did.
- On May 1, a march of nationalist organizations took place in Warsaw, where marchers expressed their opposition to restitution, pinning badges with crossed out number 447 to their clothes. “Law 447,” called Justice for Uncompensated Survivors Today, or JUST, is an act approved by the US Congress one year ago. It is a push to ensure that people who survived World War II — or their heirs — receive compensation for their losses, if that has not already happened.

According to the law, the US secretary of state is to prepare a progress report by this year on the situation of property left behind during the war in 46 countries, including Poland. The report is to show how a given country has resolved this issue.

During World War II, three million Polish Jews and nearly two million Polish citizens of other faiths were murdered.
- As for the post-imperial ambition of reviving Soviet aircraft manufacturing, there's no need to rush it even in the face of competition with China (which hasn't been particularly successful with its aircraft project, either). Russia's engineering brainpower and strong legacy in the industry should make it possible to produce good commercial planes someday.

Earlier this year, Putin urged Russian aircraft builders to work on a civilian version of the Tu-160 supersonic strategic bomber. Russia does make strongly competitive warplanes, and that gives it a lot to build on. But the ill-fated SSJ project should serve as a warning against haste and hype. Malfunctioning planes can kill people. Humility, caution and perfectionism, as a rule, don't.
- “The F-35 program has made slow, sustained progress in improving the F-35’s R&M,” GAO concluded. “R&M determines the likelihood that the aircraft will be in maintenance rather than available for operations. Each F-35 aircraft variant is measured against eight R&M metrics, four of which are in part of the contract. All F-35 variants are generally performing near or above targets for half of the R&M metrics while the other four are still falling short, which is the same as last year. While the program is on track to meet the targets for half of the metrics, the program has not taken adequate steps to ensure the targets for the others will be met.”

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- use price matching when you can to get an extra discount. Note, a lot of companies advertise low prices just to get you through the door. ...