2016 DOTE Report:
http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2016/pdf/other/2016DOTEAnnualReport.pdf From page 55, “In August, an F-35 OT pilot from Edwards AFB, California, briefed the results of an OT community assessment of F-35 mission capability with Block 3FR5.03, based on observing developmental flight test missions and results to date. This OT assessment rated all IOT&E mission areas as “red,” including CAS, SEAD/DEAD, Offensive Counter Air (OCA) and Defensive Counter Air (DCA), AI, and Surface Warfare (SuW).
Several DT Integrated Product Team representatives also briefed the status of different F-35 mission systems capabilities, most of which were rated “red,” and not meeting the entrance criteria to enter the “graduation level” mission effectiveness testing.” This is an F-35 pilot saying that the F-35 is hopeless at everything. (Note by Picard578: In missions such as CAS which require specialized skillset and aircraft design, even achieving full capability will still leave F-35 incapable of adequately performing the mission).
On page 56 the Block Buy is discussed. What is strange is the language which talks in terms of percentages of the Economic Order Quantity instead of stating the actual numbers of aircraft. The Block Buy is an attempt to forestall abandonment of the program by locking the USAF and foreign buyers into taking 452 aircraft before the program is abandoned. Lockheed Martin is aware that the foreign partners are only contracted for 30 aircraft. The lure is supposed savings by buying in bulk. Now what is not mentioned in the 2016 DOT&E report is the number of hours to build an F-35 of 70,000. This had flatlined in the 2015 report and thus no further decreases in the build cost could be expected. Th
e 2016 DOT&E report also did not mention the rework rate which is the percentage of build hours spent fixing components that had been damaged during installation. The F-35 is packed tighter than a head of cabbage. The rework rate had also flatlined at 14% so no further improvement could be expected. Therefore the build cost will remain at about $130 million and not fall to the $80 million promised for the Block Buy. (Note by Picard578: $130 is most likely price for F-35A only, other versions would be more expensive). From page 60, “Limitations to the carriage and employment envelope of the AIM-120 missile above 550 knots may be required due to excessive vibrations on the missiles and bombs in the weapons bay. Analyses of flight test data and ground vibration test data are ongoing (this applies to all variants).” With only two air-to-air missiles, the F-35 is effectively unarmed. Now it seems that, ten years after the first production aircraft came off the line, that the shaping of the bomb bay means that there is excessive vibration if the aircraft comes close to a high subsonic speed where it would normally be operating. (Note by Picard578: This also means that the F-35 cannot use supersonic speed and altitude increase that comes with it when launching missiles. As a result, missile launched from F-35 will have significantly less energy, and thus range, than a missile of the same type launched from other fighter).
From page 61, “All F-35 variants display objectionable or unacceptable flying qualities at transonic speeds, where aerodynamicforces on the aircraft are rapidly changing. Particularly, under elevated “g” conditions, when wing loading causes the effects to be more pronounced, pilots have reported the flying qualities as “unacceptable.” So as well as not being able to carry bombs and missiles at high subsonic speeds, the F-35 doesn’t handle the transonic part well either. From page 69, “Many pilots assess and report that the Electro-Optical Targeting System (EOTS) on the F-35 is inferior to those currently on legacy systems, in terms of providing the pilot with an ability to discern target features and identify targets at tactically useful ranges, along with maintaining target identification and laser designation throughout the attack. Environmental effects, such as high humidity, often forced pilots to fly closer to the target than desired in order to discern target features and then engage for weapon employment, much closer than needed with legacy systems, potentially alerting the enemy, exposing the F-35 to threats around the target area or requiring delays to regain adequate spacing to set up an attack.” The F-35 was designed primarily as a ground attack aircraft and is not as good at doing that as the aircraft it would replace. (Note by Picard578: EOTS is a midwave IR system designed specifically for ground attack. Fact that legacy systems outperform it in its designed mission so comprehensively means that situation in air combat will be far worse).
Also from page 69, “Compared to a legacy fighter with multiple weapons on racks, and multiple weapons types per aircraft, the limited load of two bombs means that only a limited number and type of targets can be effectively attacked.” Confirmation that the F-35 is not cost-effective. (Note by Picard578: This can be worked around by carrying external weapons, but as Block 3F testing revealed, even this has resulted in F-35 being “red” in capability).
From page 72, “If used in combat, F-35 aircraft will need support to locate and avoid modern threat ground radars, acquire targets, and engage formations of enemy fighter aircraft, due to unresolved performance deficiencies and limited weapons carriage available (i.e., two bombs and two air-to-air missiles).” Finding ground radars was the one thing that the F-35 was supposed to be good at, but now it needs help to do that? (Note by Picard578: This means that the F-35 will be limited by “legacy” fighter support, preventing it from attacking targets deep in defended territory.)
From page 83, “Aircraft fleet-wide availability averaged 52 percent for 12 months ending October 2016, compared to the modest goal of 60 percent. It is important to note that the expected combat sortie rates will require significantly greater availability than 60 percent; therefore, if the F-35 is to replace legacy aircraft for combat taskings, availability will likely need to improve to near 80 percent.” (Note by Picard578: These availability rates are in line with availability rates of other stealth aircraft, F-22 in particular. It is therefore unrealistic to expect F-35 availability rates to go above 60 percent).
Also from page 83, “reliability metrics related to critical failures have decreased over the past year. This decrease in reliability correlates with the simultaneously observed decline in the Fully Mission Capable (FMC) rate for all variants, which measures the percentage of aircraft not in depot status that are able to fly all defined F-35 missions. The fleet-wide FMC rate peaked in December 2014 at 62 percent and has fallen steadily since then to 21 percent in October 2016.” So reliability has gone backwards and only one in five F-35s at a time might be able to fly a combat mission. Lockheed has to be incentivised to perform. From page 84, “the program has implemented a Performance Based Logistics (PBL) construct with Lockheed Martin that ties contract incentive awards to a slightly different set of tailored fleet performance targets.” (Note by Picard578: All contractors have to be incentivised to perform, this is not only the case with Lockheed).
From page 87, “For the 12-month period ending in October 2016, the monthly cannibalization rate averaged 9.8 cannibalization actions for every 100 sorties against a program goal of no more than 8 actions for every 100 sorties.” This is absolutely bizarre for an aircraft in development, particularly for an aircraft which is so difficult to work in. From the table on page 89, reliability is only at 45% of the required 20 hours between failures and won’t improve enough to meet the contract specification.
