Pentagon, Lockheed rebut F-35 fighter jet critics

[rossana <rossana at comodinoposta.org>]

Già il GAO pubblicò una relazione sfavorevole al JSF, ora ne arrivano 
altre (oltre quelle della Rand che poi smentisce).
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2373457.htm

Storia del programma più costoso degli Stati Uniti. (a cui l'Italia dà 
una mano).

Nell'articolo qui sotto si dice che l'F-35 durante delle simulazioni 
virtuali (Wargame di Pacific Vision ) avrebbe mostrato prestazioni 
inferiori nel combattimento con caccia come i Su-30. L'Australia ne 
sarebbe rimasta allarmata perchè sarebbe una possibile acquirente. Il 
Generale responsabile del Pentagono per il programma JSF Charles R. 
Davis, smentisce in una teleconferenza organizzata insieme alla 
Lockheed, le affermazioni dei russi (che hanno utilizzato il wargame) 
affermando che la simulazione si basava su dati travisati.
Ma secondo Pierre Sprey, ex-ufficiale del Pentagono coinvolto nella 
progettazione dell’F-16 e Winslow Wheeler, analista del Center for 
Defense Information, l’aereo sarebbe sovrappeso, con un motore 
sottopotenziato, trasporta troppe poche armi, non è in grado di 
supportare adeguatamente le truppe al suolo essendo troppo veloce per 
ingaggiare bersagli tattici al suolo in attività CAS, troppo fragile per 
fronteggiare fuoco da terra e con troppa poca autonomia per sorvolare la 
zona d’operazioni per periodi prolungati.

Di fatto la risposta dell'azienda alle critiche è che le prestazioni 
sono pari a quelle degli EFA europei. E allora? Perchè l'Italia li vuole 
addirittura entrambi in un periodo di grave crisi economica?

Pentagon, Lockheed rebut F-35 fighter jet critics
By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin Corp , its 
largest supplier, sought on Friday to shoot down criticism of their $299 
billion F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, the costliest planned U.S. 
arms buy ever.

Published reports that Russian-built Sukhoi fighter jets thrashed the 
F-35 in simulated dogfights last month are "just flat false," Air Force 
Maj. Gen. Charles Davis, the Pentagon official in charge of the program, 
said in a teleconference hastily called by Lockheed to rebut negative 
publicity at a critical juncture for the program.

Development of the family of radar-evading, multi-role, single engine 
F-35 fighters was co-financed by Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, 
Turkey, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Norway.

Each of these countries is within a couple of months to a couple of 
years of making F-35 procurement decisions, and some people with 
unspecified "agendas" may be maneuvering, Davis said.

F-35 competitors include Saab's, Gripen, the Dassault, Rafale, MiG-35 
and Sukhoi Su-35, and the Eurofighter Typhoon, made by a consortium of 
British, German, Italian and Spanish companies.

The West Australian newspaper reported earlier this month that F-35s had 
been "clubbed like baby seals" by simulated Sukhois at war games in 
Hawaii last month.

Tom Burbage, general manager of the F-35 program for Lockheed Martin, 
said in the teleconference, "We've been able to put the issue in 
Australia to bed." He said Australia's prime minister had been among 
those troubled by the report.

Davis countered that the exercise at issue, Pacific Vision 2008, did not 
even address air-to-air combat effectiveness, dealing instead with 
logistics issues around the Pacific Rim.

Citing U.S. Air Force analyses, he said the F-35 is at least 400 percent 
more effective in air-to-air combat capability than the best fighters 
currently available in the international market, including Sukhois.

Davis and Burbage also took aim at a highly critical guest column in the 
September 10 issue of Jane's Defence Weekly, a trade publication, by 
industry-watchers Winston Wheeler and Pierre Sprey, who helped shape 
Lockheed's F-16 fighter.

Wheeler and Sprey tarred the F-35 as a "dog," calling it overweight, 
underpowered and, with a payload of only two 2,000-pound bombs in its 
bomb bay, "hardly a first-class bomber either."

As a close-support attack aircraft, they wrote it is too fast to see the 
tactical targets it is shooting at; too delicate and flammable to 
withstand ground fire; and lacking the "endurance" to loiter usefully 
over friendly ground forces for sustained periods.

In a rebuttal statement, Lockheed said the F-35 was a "racehorse, not a 
'dog'," with unprecedented combat advantages, including the most 
powerful engine ever installed in a fighter.

The first F-35, a conventional take-off and landing version, began its 
flight testing program on December 15, 2006.

After the June 11 maiden flight of a short take-off, vertical landing 
model, the Pentagon's top arms buyer, John Young, said the program was 
more mature than comparable ones at this stage of development "in terms 
of quality, software, testing and manufacturing readiness."

Lockheed's chief F-35 subcontractors are Northrop Grumman Corp and BAE 
Systems Plc . Two rival, interchangeable F-35 engines are under 
development. One is built by United Technologies Corp's, Pratt & Whitney 
unit; the other by a team of General Electric Co and Rolls-Royce Group Plc .

The United States currently plans to buy a total of 2,443 F-35 models -- 
including 1,763 for the U.S. Air Force and 680 for the Marine Corps and 
Navy together. It is the costliest U.S. arms program ever at a projected 
$299 billion.

Hundreds of others may be sold overseas to replace a range of fighters, 
including Lockheed F-16s and Boeing Co, F-18s.

Davis has said the F-35 is on course to become a $1 trillion venture 
worldwide through 2065, when the last scheduled to be built would reach 
the end of its projected service life.

One trillion dollars is "what it costs to develop, buy, upgrade, sustain 
and fly more than 3,000 airplanes through their entire scheduled life 
cycle," he told Reuters in July, referring to the projected world fleet.