Faster, Better, Cheaper

An uptick in exports has led Saab to increase spending on its Gripen E program:

Strengthening interest in the Gripen E has prompted Saab to accelerate its investment in the programme, with the step to include the introduction of enhancements intended to heighten the product's attractiveness to prospective buyers.

"Due to the strong interest in Gripen E/F, Saab has now accelerated the pace of investment to develop the system for future exports," the company disclosed in a quarterly results announcement on 26 April.

Chief executive Håkan Buskhe describes the measure as relating to "industrialisation, and also some key development on features for the export market". While he declines to identify specific updates, he notes: "There are things that will enhance the product that we have seen during the development time for the Gripen E." This process began for launch customer the Swedish air force in 2013.

Buskhe says Saab received fresh interest in the new-generation fighter from several undisclosed nations during the first three months of this year. The company cites a long list of prospective customers for the type, including Austria, Bulgaria, India and Slovakia.

Saab will deliver its first production examples of the Gripen E to Sweden and export buyer Brazil next year and the nations will receive a combined total of 96 examples up to 2026. Buskhe says the level of interest being shown in the product is consistent with previous forecasts of a total production run of at least 400 units.

The Gripenis less than half the size, and less than half the direct operating costs, of its competitors, while being (at least) nearly as capable in terms of everything but payload and range.

It's been on budget, and on schedule, and (unlike the F-35) nations have the information to incorporate their own weapons into the aircraft.

It's not surprising that it's doing well:  It's in a very similar position to that of the Mirage III in the 1960s.

Bad Day at the Office

An F-22 had a forced landing at NAS Fallon in Nevada.

It appears that an engine flamed out on takeoff:

A U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptor from the 3rd Air Force Wing at Elmendorf Air Force has been involved in an incident at NAS Fallon in western Nevada. The aircraft has been shown in photos posted to social media laying on the runway with the landing gear retracted. The aircraft appears largely intact. No injuries have been reported. BTW, Tyler Rogoway at The War Zone has posted an interesting photo of the Raptor on its belly here.

There has not been an official announcement of the cause of the incident, and an incident like this will be subject to an official investigation that will ultimately determine the official cause.

"Hi, honey, how was work today?"

"Don't ask!"

I Guess that they Don't Need to Put a Contractor in Every Congressional District Now

Because of escalating costs, the Pentagon is looking at aggressively competing the contracts for the parts suppliers for the F-35.

Early in the process, the goal was to spread work around to as many Congressional districts as possible, but now that the proram is too big to fail, they are looking for people who can actually do the work competently for a reasonable price:

The Pentagon is embarking on a comprehensive effort to examine the entire F-35 supply chain from top to bottom for opportunities to compete components and repair work, a top Defense Department official says.

The move is aimed at incentivizing suppliers to reduce cost and increase efficiencies, as the F-35 enterprise faces severe parts shortages and a skyrocketing sustainment bill (AW&ST April 9-22, p. 40).

The department’s efforts to inject competition into the supply chain comes as the F-35 program faces challenges on the production line. The rate of mistakes by suppliers or skilled workers during the manufacturing process is too high, according to F-35 Program Executive Officer Mat Winter.

………

As the government and Lockheed work to get support costs under control, competition and alternative parts sourcing could be key, Robert McMahon, assistant secretary of defense for logistics and materiel readiness, said during Aviation Week’s MRO Americas conference in Orlando, Florida, April 11. The F-35 operations and sustainment bill has been pegged at more than $1 trillion over the life of the program.

The current structure was driven by politics, not competence or efficiency, and it is a remarkably wasteful way to create jobs.

To quote Ike, "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Michael Moore Could Explain This to You

It appears that the US military has been unable to fill ¼ of its pilot positions:

The military’s fighter pilot shortfall is reaching alarming proportions — and a new report from the Government Accountability Office shows just how bad the problem has become.

The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are each short about a 25 percent of the fighter pilots they need in crucial areas, according to the GAO report released Wednesday, titled “DOD Needs to Reevaluate Fighter Pilot Workforce Requirements.”

The problem has grown worse in recent years. And because it takes the Air Force, for example, about five years of training — and costing anywhere from $3 million to $11 million — before a fighter pilot can lead flights, holding on to these pilots is vital to recouping the military’s investments and making sure the services can carry out their required missions.

Over the last two years, the Air Force has particularly sounded alarm bells over its pilot shortfalls. The service has stood up a team led by a one-star general to find ways to stem the bleeding of its pilot ranks. Efforts include dramatically increasing retention bonuses, cutting out paperwork and other non-flying duties that keep pilots out of the cockpit, and taking many other steps intended to keep pilots in the service.

Last November, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said the service was short 2,000 of all its pilots, or about 10 percent, and sounded a dire prediction of what it would lead to.

………

But these stop-gap measures come with a cost, GAO said. Squadron leaders and fighter pilots told GAO that the high pace of operations for senior fighter pilots — some have been used to fill vacant junior positions, for example — limits their ability to train junior pilots. And that makes it harder for the military to grow the ranks of pilots with specific qualifications.

Deploying fighter pilots more frequently causes family instability and leads to career dissatisfaction, GAO said.

………

Retention of fighter pilots is also declining. Although the Air Force has dramatically increased the maximum retention bonus for pilots — first from $125,000 up to $225,000 in 2013, and finally up to $455,000 last year ― fewer and fewer pilots are taking them. Between 2013 and 2017, the take rates for fighter pilots declined from 63 percent to 35 percent, a 28 percentage-point drop.

One of the sources of recruitment for pilots of all kinds are people who want to become commercial airline pilots.

With changes in the industry making the positions far less pleasant, (Michael Moore discussed how the treatment of airline pilot by airlines have become increasingly abusive in his movie Capitalism: A Love Story) fewer people are considering putting in 5-10 years of military service as a entree into commercial aviation.

You see the same thing with truckers, where pay and benefits have been decimated over the past few decades.

If you have a job that requires specialized skills and training, and you devalue that job so as to overpay the banksters, fewer people will get the skills and training necessary for that job.

It's Econ 101.

F-35 Sustainment Challenges Mount As Global Fleet Grows | Defense content from Aviation Week

What a surprise.

Lockheed-Martin promised that the F-35 would have support costs near that of the far smaller F-16, because of it's advanced logistics software.

Right now, it looks like it will cost more to operate than the twin engine F-15:

………

This specific problem was resolved quickly, but that is not often the case. Across the F-35 enterprise, operators are struggling with severe maintenance challenges of which the most critical are a spare parts shortage, insufficient repair capacity and excessive glitches in the ALIS logistics system that tracks the health of the fleet. Meanwhile at the production level, suppliers and skilled workers are making mistakes that slow down the manufacturing process before a complete aircraft even comes off the line.

The sustainment challenges are emerging at a pivotal time for the program, with F-35 pilot training ramping up, international deliveries accelerating, and the Navy on track to achieve initial operational capability of its F-35Cs in 2019. As the global F-35 fleet is poised to triple by 2021, government and industry officials are facing mounting pressure to solve these challenges—and fast.

Reports emerged recently that the U.S. Air Force—the F-35’s single largest customer—would be forced to cut as many as 590 F-35s from the overall buy, or one-third of the force, if sustainment costs do not come down. The government-industry team must find a way to reduce operations and sustainment (O&S) costs or F-35 customers will have to make “tough decisions,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said ominously during a recent event in Washington.

The Air Force is working with the JPO to reduce overall O&S costs by 38% over the next 10 years, or about $3.8 billion a year, Wilson says. And in the field, the Air Force aims to get the cost to sustain the F-35 down to that of sustaining a legacy F-16, according to Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein.

………

The main F-35A training hubs, Luke and Eglin AFB, Florida, arguably are facing the most immediate challenge as the Air Force grapples with a critical pilot shortfall.

………

But it is not just the training bases that are impacted by the spare parts problem. Overall from January through Aug. 7, 2017, F-35s were unable to fly because they were awaiting parts on average about 22% of the time—more than double the Pentagon’s goal of 10%, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

………

ALIS, the maintenance hub of the F-35 enterprise, was designed to ease the burden on maintainers by increasing automation. But today the system, which is based on a 1995 architecture, actually is adding to their workload.

ALIS has an excessive rate of “false positives,” where the system mistakenly tells the maintainers a certain part is broken. Even more troubling, each service continues to rely heavily on contractor-provided information technology experts, rather than service personnel, to manipulate ALIS’s intricate software and complex databases, according to the subcommittee chairman, U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio).

In the field, maintainers must rely on inefficient workarounds and manual tracking processes when ALIS is not performing as it should, officials say. In some of the Air Force’s maintenance units, for example, airmen are assigned to tackle ALIS glitches as their primary job, says Harris, which was certainly not in the original plan.

(emphasis mine)


Lockheed-Martin developed a tightly integrated system as a way of maximizing their ability to lock in customers to their support services,



So you have a gargantuan mass of interdependent code, and fixing problems is like untying the Gordian knot.

The F-35 is never going to be as cheap to operate as an F-16, the JSF's MTOW is 65% more than the that of the F-16, but right now, it's simply too expensive to operate in significant numbers.

Some Skunkworks History Revealed

Lockheed's Skunk Works has finally revealed some of its earliest efforts on stealthy drones:

In 2001, Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works secretly flew a flying wing unmanned air vehicle (UAV) with a roughly 9m (30ft) wingspan with modular wings and a bulbous fuselage as a technology demonstrator for a family of aircraft.

As the company prepares to celebrate the Skunk Works’ 75th anniversary in June, Lockheed decided to reveal the existence of the formerly secret project at the Los Angeles County air show on 24 March in Lancaster, California, which lies few miles north on Highway 14 from the unit’s headquarters in Palmdale.

Lockheed’s “X-44A” greeted visitors at the entrance of the five-year-old local event near Edwards AFB, a storied flight test centre for the US Air Force and NASA.

Although the project’s existence is no longer a secret, Lockheed is not yet prepared to offer many details beyond the year of its first flight and its role as a demonstrator for a family of UAVs.

If anyone is going to the air show, see if you can get a Q&A session with a Lockheed rep.

OOPS!

Belgium is planning to acquire a replacement for its F-16 fleet, and the leader in this contest is the F-35 mistake jet.

It now turns out that the government concealed options from the lawmakers to get the procurement approved:

Belgium’s future fighter program has been thrown into turmoil after it emerged that cheaper options to extend the life of the country’s F-16 Fighting Falcons had been deliberately hidden from ministers.

The scandal, which has already resulted in the suspension of several military officers and civil servants, came to light after the leaking of a Lockheed Martin assessment dated April 2016 to several Belgian news outlets on March 20. The documents suggested the country’s F-16s could be upgraded and given another six years of operational life, making a new fighter purchase less urgent than government officials had previously contended.

Defense Minister Steven Vandeput told the country’s Parliament that he had not been made aware of the report about the potential life extension option.

“If this report actually exists, if its content is accurate, and if the defense [ministry] has decided not to share it, there is a problem,” Vandeput told a Belgian radio station.

Yes, it is a problem.

Welcome to the military-industrial complex, Belgium.

A Cool Idea That Isn't Going Anywhere

Saab is once again is considering marinizing the Gripen fighter for carrier use.

Technically, the airframe is already well suited to carrier use, but who is going to buy it?

The only countries that operate, or will operate, carriers with arrester gear are the US, France, China, Russia, Brazil, and India.

That's a small market, since only Brazil and India won't buy their own aircraft, and that is a very small production:

Based on the in-development Gripen E, the model would be capable of operating from aircraft carriers configured either for short-take-off but arrested recovery (STOBAR) or catapult-assisted take-off but with arrested recovery (CATOBAR) operations.

"We have a fully certified design that has been signed off by Saab management for the maritime version of Gripen," says Tony Ogilvy, head of marketing for the Gripen M. "It's in our portfolio, but it is only a design. We have not taken it to the next critical step, which will require a customer."

Ogilvy's background is carrier aviation. During a three-decade career in the UK Royal Navy he flew Blackburn Buccaneers for 12 years and British Aerospace Sea Harriers for six, including from several of the service's carriers. He contends that Saab's model-based systems engineering approach offers a "very high level of fidelity" that should, if a Gripen M customer is obtained, result in a concept demonstrator that works well first time.

………

Given that Sweden has no plans for aircraft carriers, the two potential markets for the Gripen M are Brazil and India.

The Brazilian air force has ordered 28 single-seat Gripen Es and eight two-seat F-model examples, being developed with Embraer. Its new fighters will be delivered between 2019 and 2024, including eight single-seaters and seven twin-seaters built in Brazil.

The nation's navy is also interested in replacing its retired aircraft carrier, the Sao Paolo, although this requirement has yet to be fully defined. Should Brazil's plans for such a new vessel gain traction, it could provide an opportunity for the Gripen M.

In India, Saab, Boeing and Dassault have responded to a request for information for 57 carrier-based fighters. India has one STOBAR-configured ship, equipped with RAC MiG-29Ks, and has plans for an additional example. Longer term, it has plans for a more potent CATOBAR carrier, potentially using General Atomics' electromagnetic aircraft launch system, as opposed to conventional steam catapults.

There is a whole flock of ducks that need get in a row before Saab can even think about putting in a serious bid.

Not gonna happen.

Cool idea though.

And, Once Again, United Airlines Says, "Here, Hold My Beer."

In the annals of poor management decisions, UAL's decision to replace a performance based bonus program with a lottery takes the cake:

Employees of United Airlines used to get quarterly bonuses if they hit certain performance targets. Now, they’ll all be entered into a lottery, out of which one—and only one—lucky person will win $100,000.

United president Scott Kirby broke the news in a memo on March 2, calling the change “an exciting new rewards program.” He noted that, in addition to the $100,000 award, quarterly prizes would also include luxury vacations, smaller cash awards, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class sedans. Instead of getting individual bonuses each quarter, workers who achieve their performance goals will be all entered into the drawing, from which winners will be chosen at random.

The change is not sitting well with employees themselves. ………

Gee, the employees aren't enthused at getting f%$#ed by the worst airline in the United States.

I think that United will be enjoying its time in the cellar.

This is the very apotheosis of American management culture.

This Has Got Me Seriously Geeking Out

First unit, with conventional controls


Fluidic controls illustrated

The University of Manchester is demonstrating fluidic controls on its Magma UAV.

Basically, it uses small puffs of air to interfere with the Coanda effect prove out-sized control effects:

A flight-test program this spring will attempt to prove supersonic air bled from an engine can provide directional control equivalent to conventional flying surfaces. The program also is aimed at investigating the potential of using exhaust vectoring to replace vertical tails. Possible applications run the gamut from enabling maneuvering with minimal impact on a radar cross-section, to increasing lift on heavy transport aircraft.

Magma, a project run by the University of Manchester, England, and supported by BAE Systems, attracted attention late in 2017 when its first flight was revealed. The September flights were with conventional control surfaces on the subscale unmanned aircraft, and mainly were concerned with establishing that a new airframe built to test fluidic-control technologies behaved as expected. Further flights, planned for late spring, are intended to demonstrate not just that these technologies work, but could in theory be inserted or removed from platforms quickly and easily.

………

The idea of using pressurized air from the engine to aid aircraft control has been around for some time. The Blackburn Buccaneer strike aircraft’s boundary-layer control system used air blown over the wings to assist carrier landings and increase control at low speeds, but Magma benefits from techniques and technologies that were unavailable during past programs.

………

“The air sticks to that rounded surface,” says Bill Crowther, a reader at the university and the Magma project’s academic lead, “but it also drags in the other air around it. So it acts like a virtual flap, without moving anything.”

Cool.

Longer Range, More Payload, Superior Performance, Lower Cost, What's Not to Love?

The Israeli Air Force is inclined to order an advanced variant of the F-15 instead more F-35s.

Even if there are things that the F-35 can do that the F-15 can't, you want to minimize spending on silver bullets:

The Israel Air Force is to decide in a few months between purchasing a third squadron of F-35 fighter jets or the F-15I, which, while less advanced, has other advantages.

The acquisition requires the approval of the General Staff and a ministerial committee, but the recommendation of the air force generally carries the day.

IAF Commander Maj. Gen. Amikam Norkin, who reportedly is leaning toward the F-15, is to submit a recommendation in May.

Israel and the United States agreed last year on the purchase of 50 F-35 fighters, two squadrons, from Lockheed Martin, with delivery completed by 2024.

………

Senior IAF officers, including the force’s previous commander, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, have lavished praise on its capabilities. One of its most important operational capabilities is stealth, the ability to not show up on enemy radar.

But in order employ its stealth capabilities, the F-35 must fly with its bombs inside the plane’s belly, which limits its carrying capacity. If the bombs are carried on the outside of the plane, its stealth capabilities are impaired.

The F-15, though older, has two advantages over the F-35: a longer flight range and the ability to carry larger bombs. Another factor in its favor is that it’s built on a different platform, which means the air force would have a mix of planes rather than relying on a single model.

The F-15I is also cheaper to operate than the F-35. But the plane is currently being upgraded by the manufacturer, Boeing, and its purchase price is expected to rise in any future deal. Thus it could end up costing the same as the F-35 does next time around.

I gotta figure that there are elements in the IAF who are seriously worried that some crucial features of the F-35 will go completely titsup when the sh%$ hits the fan.

My money would among the items worrying IAF planners is its the JSF's ill-starred Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS).

More Mistake Jet Follies

It's supposed to dominate the skies, it's supposed to provide close air support to the troops on the ground, and it's supposed to have unparalleled reliability and availability.

Not so much:

Efforts to improve the reliability of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 are “stagnant,” undercut by problems such as aircraft sitting idle over the last year awaiting spare parts from the contractor, according to the Pentagon’s testing office.

The availability of the fighter jet for missions when needed -- a key metric -- remains “around 50 percent, a condition that has existed with no significant improvement since October 2014, despite the increasing number of aircraft,” Robert Behler, the Defense Department’s new director of operational testing, said in an annual report delivered Tuesday to senior Pentagon leaders and congressional committees.

The F-35 section, obtained by Bloomberg News, outlined the status of the costliest U.S. weapons system as it’s scheduled to end its 16-year-old development phase this year. Starting in September, the program is supposed to proceed to intense combat testing that’s likely to take a year, an exercise that’s at least 12 months late already. Combat testing is necessary before the plane is approved for full-rate production -- the most profitable phase for Lockheed.

Pentagon officials including Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan and chief weapons buyer Ellen Lord have highlighted the need to reduce the F-35’s $406.5 billion projected acquisition cost and its estimated $1.2 trillion price tag for long-term operations and support through 2070. Still, the Defense Department is moving to accelerate contracting and production for the fighter despite the persistence of technical and reliability issues disclosed in the current phase of development testing.

16 years in development, and it still does not work.

This has all gotten so dysfunctional that I'm waiting for a horse to be appointed to the Senate.

Dumb-Ass

Such a nice boy!

My son Charlie (Youtube Channel here, his Deviant Art here) decided to take his laptop with him to my nephew Sam's Bar Mitzvah.

On the way home, he misplaced it.

Luckily, left it left the TSA bin at airport security, and his login screen has his name, so he called them today (Lost and Found was closed for the King holiday), and they will be sending it to him, at his expense, via express delivery.

Well, he can take solace that he is a lucky dumb-ass.

Note: I published this post with his express permission, so don't go calling me a bad parent.

Heading Back Home

Taking the red eye from Seattle to Baltimore.

I'm in the plane waiting for the doors to close.

Pray for Me

We are headed to Seattle for my nephew's bar mitzvah.

We are flying Spirit air lines.

(Cue ominous music)

(On edit)
At least it is a direct flight.

Airline Passenger Does to Plane What Airlines do to Passengers

After a passenger let loose in the bathroom in a way that it, "Resembled the sets in The Wild Bunch if the film had been directed by John Waters instead of Sam Peckinpah," United Airlines flight 895 was forced to make an emergency landing:

United Airlines passengers found themselves in a fetid situation when their Chicago-to-Hong Kong flight made an unscheduled landing in Alaska after a man had smeared feces all over some of the plane’s bathrooms, airport officials said.

United Flight 895 was diverted to Anchorage on Thursday night, according to CBS affiliate KTVA, and police officials at Ted Stevens International Airport said the landing was due to a “passenger smearing feces everywhere.”

More specifically, officials said the man had dirtied “a couple” of lavatories on the plane and had also tried to cram his shirt down a toilet.

United said in a statement only that the flight was diverted due to “a disruptive passenger.”

This is some sort of metaphor lived in real life.

Not a Surprise

The head of the Pakistani Air Force has announced that they will be shooting down drones in their airspace, including US ones:

Pakistan Air Force (PAF) chief Sohail Aman said here on Thursday that he has ordered his force to shoot down any drones, including those of the US, if they violate the country's airspace.
The announcement was made public about two weeks after a US drone strike targeted a militant compound in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, killing three militants.

Pakistan had always condemned drone strikes on its soil but had never said they would shoot down the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). "We will not allow anyone to violate our airspace. I have ordered PAF to shoot down drones, including those of the US, if they enter our airspace, violating the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity," Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman told an audience in Islamabad.

If he meant that US missile strikes on militant positions were a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty, then these violations have been occurring since 2004. The CIA was responsible for all US drone strikes in Pakistan until November 30, 2017.

Such is the price of unilateralism.

It works, until it's can't

A Load of Bananas Whirling Around

It does look like whirling bananas


And the 1980s predecessor

The aviation engine manufacturer Safran is looking at an open rotor engine, which was looked at, and largely abandoned in the 1980s because of issues with noise and airframe integration issues:

Safran Aircraft Engines now has clearly plotted the technological trajectory a counter-rotating open-rotor (CROR) engine can be part of, somewhere between an ultra-high-bypass-ratio (UHBR) turbofan and a boundary-layer-ingestion (BLI) configuration. Despite wavering interest from the rest of the industry, the France-based company believes its ground demonstrator here in Istres is proving the architecture is certifiable in terms of both safety and noise. It says it would be an efficient powerplant for the 2030-35 generation of narrowbody aircraft.

The CROR concept has to be evaluated long before a commercial program is launched. It would be a greater breakthrough than the UHBR, a geared turbofan with a bypass ratio of 15. The latter could be ready in the 2025-30 time frame and is Airbus’ priority. In Safran’s view, the CROR, with its bypass ratio of 30, would be next. That would proceed an engine designed for BLI, in 2040-45.

Compared to the CFM Leap’s fuel burn, the UHBR and the CROR would be 5-10% and 15% better, respectively. Being unducted, a CROR can have a greater bypass ratio, and therefore a lower fuel burn. At Mach 0.75, the CROR would require a minor concession in speed.

………

A major challenge for an unducted engine can be found in acoustics. A witness to GE36 testing in the 1980s remembers its “dreadful” noise. And, since May, no journalist has been allowed to see and listen to an actual CROR run in Istres.

Nevertheless, Safran says the problem has been solved. The pair of propellers has been aerodynamically optimized, with thin blade profiles and complex shapes. They meet the current Chapter 14 standard, according to wind tunnel-trial results. The noise level is well below that of a turboprop, Bonini adds.

The engine is in generally form remarkably similar to the GE/Snecma engine from 30 years ago.

Both are using a fighter engine in the 20,000 lb thrust class as gas generators, and in both cases the props are being driven by counter rotating free turbines without a transmission.

It's a bit of 80s technology that never seemed to find its way into production.

Maybe this time.

Russia Slams Breaks on SU-57

It looks like it will remain largely a technology demonstrator for the next 10 years as its intended engines are developed:

The Kremlin’s new state armament plan, which will run from 2018-2027, will continue modernization of the Russian Aerospace Forces. However, while Russia will continue to buy modern combat aircraft such as the Sukhoi Su-35S Flanker-E air superiority fighter and the Su-34 Fullback bomber, Moscow is not likely to make large purchases of the fifth-generation Su-57 PAK-FA stealth fighter until after 2027.

“The Su-57 is not expected to enter into serial production until upgraded engines are ready, which is unlikely to happen until 2027,” Center for Naval Analyses senior research scientist Dmitry Gorenburg wrote in a new PONARS Policy Memo. “Over the next eight years, Russia will continue to purchase small numbers of these planes for testing.”

………

During the coming years, the Russian air force is likely to focus on addressing support aircraft such strategic airlifters and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance planes. Moreover, the Russians will also have to address persistent problem with their aerial refueling capabilities.

“Transport and refueling aircraft, long an area of weakness for the Russian air force, will be one area of focus,” Gorenburg wrote. “Serial production of the long-troubled Ilyushin Il-76-MD90A is expected to start in 2019, and the Russian military is expecting to receive 10-12 such aircraft per year thereafter. A light transport aircraft is under development, with prototypes expected to be completed in 2024.”

Obviously, this is not an official announcement by Russia, but it makes sense.

Refueling, transport, and AEW are significant weaknesses in the current Russian aviation forces, and their fighter force is largely recapitalized, so it's a case of focusing resources on the most obvious weaknesses.

And the Mistake Jet Cluster F%$# Continues

The F-35 was intended to be a major technical leap, not just in performance (it isn't), and not just in stealth (it isn't), but also in terms of its availability and maintenance overhead.

It turns put that it has failed the last bit as well:

The Pentagon is accelerating production of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet even though the planes already delivered are facing “significantly longer repair times” than planned because maintenance facilities are six years behind schedule, according to a draft audit.

The time to repair a part has averaged 172 days -- “twice the program’s objective” -- the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s watchdog agency, found. The shortages are “degrading readiness” because the fighter jets “were unable to fly about 22 percent of the time” from January through August for lack of needed parts.

The Pentagon has said soaring costs to develop and produce the F-35, the costliest U.S. weapons system, have been brought under control, with the price tag now projected at $406.5 billion. But the GAO report raises new doubts about the official estimate that maintaining and operating them will cost an additional $1.12 trillion over their 60-year lifetime.

Already, the agency said in the draft obtained by Bloomberg News, the Defense Department “must stretch its resources to meet the needs of continued system development and production while at the same time sustain the more than 250 aircraft it has already fielded.”

In addition to this, it has been revealed that the first 108 F-35s produced will never be combat capable, so something around $40 billion has been flushed down the toilet:

The new F-35 program executive officer, U.S. Navy vice admiral Mat Winter, said his office is exploring the option of leaving 108 aircraft in their current state because the funds to upgrade them to the fully combat-capable configuration would threaten the Air Force’s plans to ramp up production in the coming years.

These are most likely the same 108 aircraft the Air Force reportedly needed to upgrade earlier in 2017. Without being retrofitted, these aircraft would become “concurrency orphans” — airplanes left behind in the acquisition cycle after the services purchased them in haste before finishing the development process.

Left unsaid so far is what will become of the 81 F-35s purchased by the Marine Corps and Navy during that same period. If they are left in their current state, nearly 200 F-35s might permanently remain unready for combat because the Pentagon would rather buy new aircraft than upgrade the ones the American people have already paid for.

 What makes this particularly galling is the aircraft that would be left behind by such a scheme were the most expensive F-35s purchased so far. When the tab for all the aircraft purchased in an immature state is added up, the total comes to nearly $40 billion.

If you run the numbers, that is about $370 million for each of these hangar queens.

Imagine what could have done with that money.