F-35 Lightning II

En taida.

Sinulla oli se AESA- tutkalla varustettu ja super cruisaava Folland Gnat suunnitteilla. Onko ollut kiinnostuneita? Vai puuttuuko ilmavoimiltakin näkemystä?
Ei vittu, taidatkin olla oikeasti idiootti. Noh, väännetään rautalangasta, kyseessä oli varmaankin humoristinen spekulaatio joistakin ominaisuuksista, joiden näkisin olevan hyviä hävittäjäkoneessa. En siis oikeasti halua/suunnittele/toivo/usko tuollaista rakennettavan. Menikö jakeluun?
 
Ei vittu, taidatkin olla oikeasti idiootti. Noh, väännetään rautalangasta, kyseessä oli varmaankin humoristinen spekulaatio joistakin ominaisuuksista, joiden näkisin olevan hyviä hävittäjäkoneessa. En siis oikeasti halua/suunnittele/toivo/usko tuollaista rakennettavan. Menikö jakeluun?
Pieni koko on todellista häivettä, vai miten se meni?

Kerro vielä miksi F-35 ei ole häivekone päivällä, idiootin päivään vähän piristystä.
 
Taking the Agile approach
GARRETT REIM
Flight International | 10-16 July 2018

For decades, the US Air Force and its lead aircraft supplier, Lockheed Martin, have struggled to efficiently write the code that runs their aircraft. The result is numerous cost overruns, delays and aircraft dysfunction – especially in the much maligned Lockheed F-35 Lightning II programme, whose software problems have put the stealth fighter billions of dollars over budget and years behind schedule.
In response, the USAF and Lockheed are betting the future on a new way of doing things called Agile software development. The commercially-derived method, which emphasises flexibility and close co-operation with users, has shown success in arresting cost overruns and speeding up delivery of functions in the commercial software industry. The USAF has seen fit to encourage its major aircraft programmes to adopt the practice.
Some early uses are encouraging. For example, by adopting Agile methods, the Special Operations Command was in 2013 able to stop multimillion-dollar budget overruns on software updates to General Atomics Aeronautical Systems’ MQ-9 Reaper unmanned air vehicle. Other major aircraft programmes now boast they have anecdotal evidence that Agile is saving them money and time, too.

Agile development methods call for writing software functions in close co-ordination with users, in bite-sized allotments, by small teams and over short periods of time. The method emphasises flexibility and responsiveness to a customer’s changing requirements – allowing software to incrementally evolve towards a solution rather than following a rigid plan.
It stands in contrast to the traditional waterfall method, which emphasises a rigid and sequential long-term plan that delivers a huge pile of updates at once, after a lengthy development period and with less frequent consultations with users.
So optimistic is the USAF for Agile software development methods that it has pushed the most-expensive and software-intensive aircraft programme in history to adopt the process. When Lockheed fixes the F-35’s Block 3F software bugs this summer, it will be the first time the programme has organised its efforts around the Agile approach to software development.
Honing the ability to write software efficiently has become a top priority for the USAF as the number of lines of code has grown exponentially. In 1960, software accounted for 8% of the functionality in the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom, compared with 80% of the functionality in the Lockheed F-22 Raptor in 2010, according to research published in the Air and Space Power Journal.

ADVANCING THREATS

Moreover, these days, the growth of code does not stop when an aircraft finishes development. The USAF plans to keep the F-35 relevant against advancing threats from China and Russia by continuous capability development and delivery (C2D2) of improved software for the aircraft. F-35 C2D2 is a huge undertaking because the aircraft already runs 8.3 million lines of code: more than four times the volume of programming for the F-22 Raptor.
In fact, the F-35 C2D2 effort is part of a little-known, five-year-long effort by the USAF to move away from traditional means of developing software towards the incremental processes of Agile.
Adopting the commercial software industry’s best practices, including the Agile method, was a hallmark of Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, who created the Strategic Capabilities Office in 2012 and Defense Innovation Unit Experimental in 2015 to push leading methods. The USAF did not provide a comment for this article, despite multiple requests.
In the civilian world, Agile software development methods are omnipresent. For example, Apple’s mobile operating system iOS 11 has been incrementally updated 14 times since its initial release to the public in September 2017.
The first major aircraft programme to implement the Agile method was the F-22 in 2013, after Lockheed grew frustrated with software delays and problems. “The idea came from our software developers at the working level,” says Ken Merchant, F-22 vice president at Lockheed. “They keep up on what’s happening across their enterprise and they had seen other companies able to implement Agile methodologies.”

Using Agile methods, Lockheed began uploading update 6 in 2018, which improves the F-22’s cryptographic framework. It has also expanded its use of Agile software methods to the F-16.
As part of Lockheed’s adoption of the method, the company implemented a version of Agile called Scaled Agile Framework (SAFE), and set up systems to closely collaborate with the USAF’s F-22 programme office.
“There is a database we have formulated under the SAFE approach that allows members of the [system programme office] to access our data,” says Merchant. For example, “they can tell we completed two features this week”.
Personnel from the system programme office also visit Lockheed’s Fort Worth, Texas facility periodically to view demonstrations of software updates in a laboratory. And, says Lockheed, it is far less consumed with the paperwork that traditional methods demand.
“We don’t have as much reporting to do and that allows us to do more value-added work,” says Merchant.
The F-22 programme also divided up its coding work into smaller chunks, delivering capabilities every 12 to 14 weeks.
“Fail fast, fix fast,”
says F-22 deputy programme manager John Cottam. “You don’t wait until you find problems. You find them quickly and you fix them quickly.”

By delivering code in smaller allotments, the developer and customer can isolate and test new functions, working out problems one by one as they come along. The Agile method can also give users some functionality upfront, instead of withholding multiple programme updates until the whole package is ready.
And the F-22 programme plans to be the first in Department of Defense history to use Agile methods to update hardware by adding the Multifunctional Information Distribution System Joint Tactical Radio System and open systems architecture components to the aircraft. The new hardware components will be introduced to the fleet in 2019 as part of the F-22 Increment 3.2B modification.
“Modernisation efforts can include software, hardware, or both, so it makes sense to do it all under the Agile framework,” says Merchant. Software and hardware capabilities thus reach the front line faster, he says.

CONSERVATIVE APPROACH

Despite all the fanfare around Agile development methods, the practice may not be easily implemented within the DoD, says Brad Wilson, an information scientist with RAND Corporation in Pittsburgh.
“The tendency in the government is to play it conservatively and define everything you want upfront so you get what you want,” he says. “You don’t want to get in a situation where you forgot to ask for something and the contract has already been signed, and the vendor says, ‘Well, you didn’t ask for that. So here’s how much you have to pay to add it’.”
In fact, that is a snag for which the F-22 programme office was recently criticised. The DoD’s Inspector General noted in a report that it was using old cost-plus-incentive-fee and cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery orders with rigidly defined delivery requirements. That contracting strategy did not reflect the changing and incremental deliverables that come with Agile.


In response, the programme office moved to agreements that reward Lockheed and other contractors based on their level of effort. However, to get the full benefit of Agile software development methods, a much larger reform of DoD contracting may be in order. “The use of Agile across DoD is increasing,” says the Inspector General’s report, “and it is imperative that DoD address the use of methodologies like Agile by updating acquisition guidance.”
The complexity of military aircraft systems also poses a problem for the Agile method, says Wilson. “The more complex the system, the harder it is to apply certain Agile methods and processes”. For example, “having face-to face interaction – that can be difficult when you are developing a lot of things in a lot of different places”
Nonetheless, there are efforts underway within the commercial world to scale Agile methods for larger projects, a development which in time may help the DoD, he adds.
Lockheed, meanwhile, acknowledges at this point it does not have any conclusive data showing that Agile methods are faster, cheaper or better than traditional methods. However, the company notes anecdotal successes and emphasises that the F-22 programme is not waiting years for whole package updates, but is instead incrementally receiving functionality upfront.
“Our potential adversaries aren’t waiting. So, if I wait for perfect, we might meet on the battlefield and I have nothing to counter,”
says Merchant. “I am essentially giving them as much capability as I can. I am giving them a rock to throw instead of nothing to throw.”
 
Viimeksi muokattu:
Flightglobal

ANALYSIS: Could Ankara be ejected from F-35 programme?

  • 09 JULY, 2018
  • SOURCE: FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL
  • BY: GARRETT REIM
  • LOS ANGELES
Opposition from the US Senate, House of Representatives and Department of State to the transfer of Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning IIs to Turkey is putting the latest delivery of the stealth fighter in jeopardy. That is despite the company having officially presented the fifth-generation aircraft to Turkish officials during a ceremony on 21 June in Fort Worth, Texas.
Should the US government actually block the F-35's transfer to Ankara, the process of untangling the NATO ally from the programme would be fraught and costly for the USA, Turkey and other customers, analysts say.
The number one objection from lawmakers and diplomats to Turkey receiving the F-35 is the nation’s agreement with Russia to buy the Almaz-Antey S-400 Triumf system: one of the most advanced surface-to-air missile products on the export market, advertised by Rosoboronexport as having an "anti-stealth range" of up to 81nm (150km).
getasset.aspx

Ankara has committed to purchase 100 F-35As, with 30 due for delivery by 2022
US Air Force
“We are sort of feeling our way along here. NATO has never had a government quite this bad in its midst,” says Richard Aboulafia, vice-president of analysis with the Teal Group. “This government is procuring Russian defence systems. At the same time it is procuring stealth fighters. Congress is right to raise concerns. This is a really bad mix of events.”
Lawmakers and Department of State officials also complain about what they say is Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decreasing respect for the rule of law, diminishment of individual freedoms, consolidation of power and strategic military decisions that are out of line with US interests.
Get all the overage from the Farnborough air show on our dedicated event page
Yet, despite this increasingly large gap between Turkey and the USA, a complete removal of Turkish companies from the F-35’s supplier base would be costly and difficult. Ten different Turkish firms make parts for every F-35 manufactured. Turkey is also contracted, along with the Netherlands and Norway, to provide regional maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade capability for the F-35’s Pratt & Whitney F135 engine in Europe.
The US government and Lockheed might also have to refund Turkey’s contributions to the aircraft’s development, as well as the down payments the country has made for its 14 ordered stealth fighters.
And then there are the optics of the situation. If USA were to eject Turkey from the F-35 programme, other nations may become reluctant to buy the aircraft should their politics fall out of favour with the administration in Washington DC.
“If another country’s relations sours, then what?” says Dan Grazier, a military fellow with the Project on Government Oversight think tank. “All of them [partner nations] should look at this, because there is an issue of how dependent they are not just on the United States, but on Lockheed Martin.”
Turkey became the seventh partner nation to join the Joint Strike Fighter programme in 2002, when it contributed $175 million to the system development and demonstration (SDD) phase. The US fighter also secured commitments from Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK.
As a partner in the programme, the Turkish air force gained insight into the aircraft's concepts and requirements definition, while Turkish companies were brought in to the supply chain as subcontractors. For example, in co-ordination with Northrop Grumman, the main fuselage manufacturer for the F-35, Turkish Aerospace Industries manufactures and assembles centre fuselages, produces composite skins and weapon bay doors, and fibre placement composite air inlet ducts.
Lockheed projects that the financial opportunities for Turkish companies to service and produce parts for the F-35 could reach $12 billion over the lifetime of the programme.
Turkey has committed to buying 100 conventional take-off and landing F-35As. Its first batch of 14 are already purchased, and a total of 30 are scheduled for delivery by the end of 2022.
In 2003, shortly after Turkey signed up to the F-35 programme, the country elected Erdoğan as its prime minister. His time at the top of Turkish politics was extended when he was elected president of Turkey in 2014 – a position renewed in June 2018.
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Turkish Aerospace Industries is a key partner
Turkish Aerospace Industries
While Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party has mild Islamist and authoritarian tendencies – out of line with the country’s history of secularism and democracy – Turkey remained a reliable US ally throughout much of the F-35’s SDD phase.
Divisions have started to develop between Ankara and Washington DC in recent years, however. Erdoğan responded to a coup d'état attempt to overthrow his government in 2016 with mass arrests, firings of individuals perceived to be sympathetic to the coup plotters from government jobs, and restrictions on freedom of speech, among other alleged human rights abuses. He has also responded to the chaos in Iraq and Syria by forging closer ties with Russia.
Then, in December 2017, Turkey announced a deal – reportedly worth $2.5 billion – to buy the S-400 air-defence system, which is designed to detect and shoot down stealth fighters such as the F-35. It also cannot communicate with NATO systems, potentially weakening the alliance’s ability to share air-defence information.
“I think the nightmare scenario is a Russian defence system interacting with a stealth fighter,” says Aboulafia, noting that the system could be used to find vulnerabilities in the F-35 – information which could be shared with Russia and its allies.
Erdoğan seemed to up the ante on 14 June, when he reportedly announced in an interview on Turkish 24 TV that he had reached out to Russian President Vladimir Putin with a proposal for Turkey and Russia to jointly produce the S-500 anti-aircraft missile system.
The antagonism caused a bi-partisan group of US representatives to send a letter to US Secretary of Defense James Mattis the following day, asking him to block the F-35 deliveries. Three days later, the US Senate passed the 2019 National Defense Authorisation Act, with a clause that would confirm this step.
Department of State officials have also voiced their concerns.
“We’ve been very clear that across the board, an acquisition of S-400 will inevitably affect the prospects for Turkish military-industrial co-operation with the United States, including F-35,” Wess Mitchell, assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, said during a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee meeting on 26 June. “We work with them very closely in intelligence and in other areas, but this has the potential to spike the punch.”
For its part, the F-35's manufacturer has little to say about the dispute.
"As always, Lockheed Martin will comply with any official guidance from the United States government," the company says. "It would be inappropriate to comment on ongoing legislation, and premature to speculate on any impact to the programme."
The F-35 Joint Programme Office did not return a request for comment.
With Turkish-made parts in every F-35 manufactured, finding new suppliers could be costly and disruptive to the programme.
“It could take a year or longer to requalify alternative producers,” Aboulafia says.
For that reason, even if there is any blockage of F-35 transfers to the Turkish air force, Ankara's defence industry might not be removed from the programme, he suggests. Aboulafia observes that Canada is a partner nation that has invested tens of millions of dollars into development of the stealth fighter and is now on the fence about buying the aircraft – but its companies have not been cut from the F-35's supplier base.
“The F-35 folks have always been pretty ambivalent about whether companies from non-customer countries can compete [for contracts],” Aboulafia says.
In fact, the US government may have time to work out a deal with Turkey, as the country is not expected to receive the new stealth fighter into its own airspace until 2020. Its first F-35A pilots are due to begin training on the new at Luke AFB, Arizona at the end of June 2018, while aircraft maintainers have already started their instruction at Eglin AFB, Florida.
Meanwhile, the dispute between Turkey and the USA may rest in the hands of the US President Donald Trump's administration – which has been uncharacteristically quiet on the issue.
“If these are just voices in the wilderness in Congress and Trump is determined to stand by someone who is Islamist, but strangely to his liking, then yeah, you don’t have to worry about this,” says Aboulafia. “Congress isn’t known for agility. Here you have the first plane about to be delivered. It’s very difficult to stop. To use the overused F-35 metaphor: the train might be leaving the station.”
 
Hmm... isoja lukuja.

Fast 5: Details of Pratt & Whitney’s Gatorworks
06 Jul 2018 Lee Ann Shay

"Matthew Bromberg, president of Pratt & Whitney Military Engines, talks with Lee Ann Shay about how GatorWorks, a rapid prototyping group of the company, will deliver 50% reductions in “it.” P&W announced GatorWorks on June 12 but actually launched it internally about one year ago.

Question:
GatorWorks’s objective is to cut engine development time for military engines by half. What metrics are you working toward for the first project?

Answer: Let me back up. Over the last few years, we have spent a lot of time listening to customers and getting feedback on what Pratt & Whitney is doing well, what we’re not doing well and what our priorities are. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force are looking for more agile and more rapid development, and more insertion of commercial capabilities into military technologies, whether that be suppliers, software, actual hardware technology. One of Pratt & Whitney’s strength is that we leverage our commercial and military businesses. If we step back at look at how successful we’ve been over multiple generations of products, we see that the large military engine development cycle hasn’t improved dramatically—it’s the 10-year cycle to go from a clean sheet to the next-generation of engines. That cycle does have some tremendous benefits. If you look at Pratt & Whitney’s single-engine reliability and safety records, we set the standard in the industry. If you look at the performance of the F135, it’s the most accomplished fighter engine ever produced. If you compare the F135 in its first 100,000 hours of service, which we just recently passed, to that of the F119 and F100, when each of those engines was at that point of service, we’re at 13 times more reliable at 100,000 hours. Over time, to clarify, we’ve improved the reliability of the F119 and F100, but it goes to show the benefits of our development cycles. What we’re wrestling with is, how do we maintain the strengths of what Pratt & Whitney has, yet be responsive to the services...."
 
F-35 vs A-10 kenttätestistä tulikin farssi, se otti jotain ammattilaista päähän ja tietoja vuodettu Pogolle:

http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/weapons/2018/close-air-support-fly-off-farce.html

Jopa A-10:n päätykin ammusmäärä on rajoitettu, jotta se ei erottuisi suhteessa F-35:een. Tosin saa A-10 kantaa vähän epätavallista extraakin, nimittäin vapaasti putoavia pommeja, joita A-10 ei ikinä käytä tukitehtävissä niiden epätarkkuuden takia.
 
Ihan hyvä vaan. Farssihan on siinä, että moinen pitää väkisin järjestää.
A-10:n hyödyllisyys tuskin tapahtuu suhteessa F-35:hen. Enemmän kyse on siitä onko savimajoja riittävästi pommiteltavaksi ja onko niidenkään olosuhteet enää niin sallivia kuin mihin A-10 kykenee.
 
En myöskään ymmärrä koko shown ideaa. Eiköhän koneiden kyvyt ole muutenkin hiton hyvin tiedossa ja dokumentoitu ilman että mitään sirkusta tarvitsee järjestää.
Ja niinkuin magitsu sanoi niin kyse on nimenomaan tuosta käytöstä. A-10:llä ei varmaan tee ns. "vittuakaan" nykyaikaista vihollista vastaan.
 
Toisaalta, A-10 ottaa tunnin turpaansa ennenkuin tulee tonttiin. Lentää vaikka ilman toista siipeä. F-35 tykittäessään ottaa osuman IT tykistä ja thats it.
 
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