F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

[Danjanou]

4 to 5 decades down the road?

Perfect, our F-35s should be pretty much ready for deployment by then.

FTFY

 

[HB_Pencil]

Sorry, I've haven't been paying much attention lately, but has any country actually cancelled their F-35 orders?

No. None have. However Denmark has re-tendered their competition and there is a chance that they may go to Gripen or Rafale, purely due to better offsets. Still the price and capability differential between these two and the F-35 is significantly skewed towards the latter.

Not a cancellation, but one that might not reflect well is the Korean Competition. The F-35 is up against the F-15 Silent Eagle (a upgraded Strike Eagle), which the Koreans have a lot of experience with. Its possible that they will go with that airraft.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Seeing as in 2010 the Cdn gov't publicly committed to the F-35--though with no contract--its decision last year to "evaluate options" for the new fighter might be considered a de facto cancellation:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/02/pol-f-35-secretariat-name-change.html
http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/app-acq/stamgp-lamsmp/snac-nfps-eng.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Haletown]

Seeing as in 2010 the Cdn gov't publicly committed to the F-35--though with no contract--its decision last year to "evaluate options" for the new fighter might be considered a de facto cancellation:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/05/02/pol-f-35-secretariat-name-change.html
http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/app-acq/stamgp-lamsmp/snac-nfps-eng.html

Mark
Ottawa

Or it could be considered as politics by other means to achieve the goal you  have already selected.  It is what a government does after they get caught with their pants down and are ambushed by the anti military/Rideau Institute crowd and a media who hates the current government, or at least the leader of the current government who treats the media with contempt.  They pretend to reconsider, get their ducks lined up like they should have done in the first go-round and hope/wait for the Development Program to continue to make good progress.

As pointed out, no nation has yet cancelled on the F-35 but two nations, Japan and Israel, have decided to purchase the jet.

 

[WingsofFury]

Seeing as in 2010 the Cdn gov't publicly committed to the F-35--though with no contract--its decision last year to "evaluate options" for the new fighter might be considered a de facto cancellation:

Mark
Ottawa

I'm sorry...when was the F-35 removed from the competition?

Right....that's what I thought.

When it's selected, are you going to then state that the government did a 180 and is now in favour of the acquisition after they made their decision to evaluate options which, in your terms, was a de facto cancellation?

 

[Haletown]

F-35 Program x particiption by nations . . .  summarized.


https://www.f35.com/global

 

[MarkOttawa]

The LockMart site says:

"...
The Royal Air Force and Royal Navy plan to operate 138 F-35B short takeoff/vertical landing aircraft..."
https://www.f35.com/global/participation/united-kingdom

The company is being exceedingly economical with the truth.  The 138 figure was abandoned with the 2010 SDR,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/07/us-lockheed-britain-f-idUSTRE8160ZB20120207

and 48 is the number most often cited now:
https://www.google.ca/search?num=100&client=firefox-a&hs=rXY&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=britain+%22f-35b%22+48&oq=britain+%22f-35b%22+48&gs_l=serp.3...64977.69736.0.72178.3.3.0.0.0.0.131.356.1j2.3.0...0.0...1c.1.11.serp.lC3NXCLxnW0

Mark
Ottawa

 

[WingsofFury]

That's of the -B variant, and then they intend to fill the remainder of the 138 aircraft with the -A variant once the Typhoon is out of service.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Just to clarify, no mention of F-35As:

UK set to procure first F-35 Lightning II squadron

The UK is expected to obtain authority to procure its first squadron of Lockheed Martin F-35B Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)/Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) before the end of 2013, IHS Jane's was told on 18 April.

Speaking at BAE Systems' Warton production facility in Lancashire, Craig Smith, the head of F-35 Sustainment Programme Development UK/EU, said that military officials with industry support are working on the Main Gate 4 approval process for the procurement of an additional 14 F-35Bs to stand up the UK's first squadron in 2016.

"Main Gate 4 is being worked on right now, and should be submitted to the Treasury later in 2013," he said. "Another 14 aircraft will be ordered to stand up 'Squadron A' [the Ministry of Defence has yet to assign a unit designation] in 2016, with support to run through to 2020."

Overall platforms numbers for the UK remain the subject of speculation, beyond the initial 48 announced by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond in 2012. The programme of record remains at 138 aircraft, but no firm numbers will be announced until the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in 2015.

With three UK F-35B aircraft already delivered, a contract for the fourth is expected in the coming months.

http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065978652

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Kirkhill]

So they could still end up buying 138 F-35 Bs then?  Or they could swap out Bs for As or Cs.  So no change.

 

[WingsofFury]

Overall platforms numbers for the UK remain the subject of speculation, beyond the initial 48 announced by Defence Secretary Philip Hammond in 2012. The programme of record remains at 138 aircraft, but no firm numbers will be announced until the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) in 2015.

Oh...so you're believing this is another de facto cancellation, correct?

 

[MarkOttawa]

Somehow one doubts the money will be there; one awaits the 2015 SDSR:

Defence will be cut after 2015, David Cameron admits
The armed forces budget is not safe from cuts after 2015, David Cameron has publicly admitted for the first time.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/9972633/Defence-will-be-cut-after-2015-David-Cameron-admits.html

Defence budget 'not safe' from cuts, PM admits

http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=22620

Mark
Ottawa

 

[WingsofFury]

"Within that we've said that we need to protect the equipment budget and we do need to make sure that equipment budget is properly funded and we've set out how we're going to do that.

So while the money may not be there for other things, the equipment budget will still stand.

I don't get it, why all this speculation over something that won't be known until the Typhoons are retired in 2030?

 

[Journeyman]

I don't get it, why all this speculation over something that won't be known until the Typhoons are retired in 2030?

I don't get why speculation that raises any questions of the F-35 is problematic, but pro-F-35 cheerleading speculation is just unbiasedly wonderful. 

 

[WingsofFury]

I don't get why speculation that raises any questions of the F-35 is problematic, but pro-F-35 cheerleading speculation is just unbiasedly wonderful. 

Every single point that someone tries to raise in here regarding the F-35 and the perceived problems it may have are proven to be factually incorrect.  That even goes for the cost of the aircraft, which people still think is twice as high as the Super Hornet.

Along with that, trying to look through a window almost 20 years from now is a lot different than looking through a window 4 years from now.

With regards to the numbers that MarkOttawa is ballyhooing about, it is clear that he's trying to show that there isn't interest in the plane internationally which is extremely erroneous.  If he has a bias against the F-35 or against the Conservative party, then fine, but don't knock the program when everything that you've posted has your own obvious spin to it. Nowhere does it say that the UK has slashed the intended purchase number of F-35's, which is what he's trying to have readers think they are doing.

 

[HB_Pencil]

Just to clarify, no mention of F-35As:
http://www.janes.com/products/janes/defence-security-report.aspx?ID=1065978652

Mark
Ottawa

Nothing is clear right now.... partly because the MoD likes the flexibility of the JSF partnership program offers. This was the testimony of the Permanent Undersecretary in 2011 regarding the purchase of F-35s for the RAF:


Q47 Chair: What is your planning assumption on the
American fighter?
Ursula Brennan: We do not need to make a planning
assumption about how many we buy for the Joint
Strike Fighter at the moment, precisely because it is a
completely different kind of contract.
Q48 Chair: But Stephen Hillier said that in his
planning he has got an assumption? Are you willing
to share it with the Committee? If you are not willing
to share it with the Committee, just say so. Again, that
will be easy.
Ursula Brennan: We think about the Joint Strike
Fighter in a different kind of way, because we think
about it in terms of buying it off the production line
from the Americans, and we don’t have to decide how
many we are going to buy until much later than we
would in something where we have entered into...

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmpubacc/860/860.pdf

However there are signs that they will make a significant purchase of F-35As. 

The RAF recently identified 416 squadron, a strike squadron currently utilizing Tornado GR4, for conversion. Considering the aircraft's capability and role in the UK's defence posture, it strongly suggests that the F-35A will be purchased. The typhoon is not seen as an adequate capability, and has significant limitations in its ground attack (not to mention its affordability). Actually the high price of the Eurofighter has pushed MoD to look at the F-35 as an increasingly attractive option for purchase.

Reading a lot of UK testimony, it seems that the MoD feels locked into the Eurofighter contract to some degree, and would now rather purchase F-35s instead.... but can't because of the MOU. again, Ursula Brennan:

at a point when we were clear what the Tranche 3
capability was, and we had a set of choices. We could
have said, “Shall we stop doing this?” And there
What we are doing with Typhoon is making
the most efficient and effective use out of it as an
incredibly successful aircraft that we have but that we
ordered a long time ago.

Doesn't quite sound like a ringing endorsement, now does it? If you read through the testimony I linked above, its pretty clear that the RAF feels that it it needs to justify its investment into the Eurofighter, but its not the ideal aircraft for many missions.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Actually I think it's RAF 617 Squadron, and likely with F-35Bs given the time frame:

Dambusters squadron escapes defence axe
04 March 2013

The 617 "Dambusters" squadron – famous for the 1943 bouncing bomb attacks on dams in Germany's Rhur Valley – has been saved from the latest round of defence cuts.

Military historians had feared the squadron – which carried out the daring wartime raid using Lancaster bombers – would disappear when the Tornado jets its pilots currently fly were phased out to be replaced by the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).

But senior defence sources said the squadron had "privileged status" because of its history and would be the first in the RAF to operate the JSF.

The new fighters are due to be introduced in three years while existing Tornados are expected to be gradually phased out by 2019.

Five RAF squadrons currently fly Tornados but it is believed only one or two will convert to the JSF, leaving the others at risk of being axed...

http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=22324

Mark
Ottawa

 

[HB_Pencil]

Actually I think it's RAF 617 Squadron, and likely with F-35Bs given the time frame:
http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=22324

Mark
Ottawa

Its unlikely, because that would entail a significant change to the RAF's Force structure. First, 617 is a RAF, not a Fleet Air Arm Squadron, but the 48 B models were intended to be carrier operations, not a replacement for land based harrier squadron. Its possible that they could go to a joint force harrier model and the conversion is part of that, but then the RAF would be converting a long range strike squadron into a shorter range ground attack squadron. That would be problematic, as it would dilute the RAF's shrinking force structure and further limit its capability.

its also one of the most visible squadrons in the RAF; so I doubt they will convert it to a shipboard squadron.

 

[MarkOttawa]

In fact it looks as if Lossiemouth (and 617 Squadron) will not get the F-35B; rather RAF Norham in Norfolk, in a joint RAF/Fleet Air Arm operation with pilots from both services flying from the RN's carrier(s).  From the MoD:

News story UK stealth fighters base announced
Organisations: Ministry of Defence and Defence Infrastructure Organisation
Published: 25 March 2013
...
The UK's Lightning II stealth fighter aircraft will be based at RAF Marham in Norfolk, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond announced today.

The Lightning II is the most advanced jet our Armed Forces have ever operated and the decision to base it at RAF Marham has secured the future of the base. The decision will also mean new investment and infrastructure to make RAF Marham the Main Operating Base for the aircraft.

Lightning II will be jointly operated by the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy and the aircraft will operate from the Navy’s new Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers as well as from RAF Marham...

The original intention (announced in 2005) was to base the aircraft at RAF Lossiemouth. Following the Strategic Defence and Security Review in 2010, a number of changes have occurred that justified a further review of the basing options for Lightning II; these include RAF Lossiemouth becoming the new home of the UK’s Typhoon fleet, while the out of service date for the Tornado GR4, currently based at RAF Marham, has been brought forward to 2019 [emphasis added]...

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-stealth-fighters-base-announced

More:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/167929/wms_de_rationalisation_update.pdf

Mark
Ottawa

 

[HB_Pencil]

I stand corrected (maybe).

However, as the 2011 testimony makes clear, saying the MoD will only purchase 48 is fairly disingenuous since they are planning to purchase more aircraft but have not identified what that force mix might be.