Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, February 08, 2013

Lockheed Martin’s top sales guys pitch F-35s in Ottawa; Canuck test pilot says fighter jets have 50 per cent further range than CF-18s

PARLIAMENT HILL—Two of Lockheed Martin’s top salesmen for the F-35 stealth fighter jet were in Ottawa Thursday for a round of media interviews, in the wake of a recent U.S. government report about development glitches for the trouble-plagued warplane and opposition criticism about high costs, to argue the F-35 is not only the best buy for Canada but also for future protection of Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic.

Lockheed Martin test pilot Billie Flynn, a former Canadian Forces CF-18 pilot who commanded a Canadian squadron on NORAD duty in northern Alberta, flew NATO combat missions over Kosovo in 1999, and is married to Canadian astronaut Julie Payette, told The Hill Times the F-35 will outperform Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18 fighters in “dramatic” fashion when it comes to Arctic sovereignty and security patrols—a key aspect in the debate over a new Canadian fighter as the polar ice cap recedes under climate warming.

“As the commanding officer, I was responsible for a NORAD fighter squadron, I was responsible for going to the Arctic with my guys,  Arctic sovereignty is a huge part of the future, every Canadian gets that,” said the former Canadian Forces lieutenant-colonel, sitting at a boardroom table in Lockheed Martin Canada’s Ottawa office.

“What does that do?” he said, pointing to an F-35 model on the table.

“It does 50 per cent further in range than the CF-18s that I flew, that my squadron flew going to the Arctic. It allows you to go the Arctic by yourself, not refuel, it allows you to go patrol over the Arctic and stay over station longer. You go further, you stay on station longer than any airplane, by a dramatic amount, 50 per cent further than I ever could go in a CF-18, that’s dramatic, that’s measurable, everyone gets it, because the expanse of the Arctic is on a scale that only a Canadian can understand,” said Mr. Flynn.

“What do you see? In the CF-18 what you have is a little radar that looks ahead, and you have the equivalent of a fuzz buster, a radar warning receiver,” Mr. Flynn said, answering questions about criticism over F-35 capabilities.

“What you see with the sensors in this airplane, I see, in my F-35 in Texas, to the horizon, everything as far as the eye can see is what I see and sense, and by the way, no one can see me doing that,” he said in reference to F-35 stealth capability.

“I get to patrol the Arctic, I go further, I stay longer, I see dramatically further at all sorts of spectrums, more than other airplane could, and no one knows I’m there. To me this is entirely a story about Arctic sovereignty,” Mr. Flynn said.

Lockheed Martin’s vice-president of programs, former U.S. fighter pilot Steve O’Bryan, who was recalled in 2003 for combat missions over Iraq, told The Hill Times that, once full-scale F-35 production begins, economies of scale through the production of more than 3,000 aircraft at a rate of 200 per year mean critics who predict price tags over $100-million per plane are wrong.

A Canadian Department of National Defence forecast, tabled in the House of Commons in December after being independently reviewed by the accounting firm KPMG, pegged the cost for Canada at $87-million per plane for a planned fleet of 65 aircraft, if the government decides to go ahead with a plan to purchase the aircraft beginning in 2017.

The government froze a $9-billion acquisition budget last year after a critical report from Auditor General Michael Ferguson, and critics argue that if Lockheed Martin production costs continue to rise Canada will be unable to buy a full fleet of 65 and may have to reduce its eventual fleet plans.

“I can only give you the facts,” Mr. O’Bryan said.

“It’s really the economies of scale, if we’re producing 200 airplanes a year on a moving assembly line that’s already in Fort Worth, Texas, that’s already been established, that’s already paid for in Fort Worth, and we have a supply chain stood up to do that,” he said, adding also that the production rate is guaranteed by U.S. military purchases alone, as the F-35 is slated to replace existing warplanes in service with the U.S. Navy, Air Force and Marines.

“I can tell you that on cost, which most people are very interested in, we have signed a fifth year of production contract, so we now have the first through the fifth year of production contract,” Mr. O’Bryan said.

 “I hear [from] a lot of different places about the F-35 cost going out of control or increasing, but these are the facts—from the first year of production to the fifth year of production we’ve dropped the price of the airplane by over 50 per cent, we’ve dropped it every single year,” he said.

Mr. O’Bryan also drew on his past, as a United States Air Force F-18 pilot for 20 years and a total of 3,000 flying hours including combat, to emphasize the stealth, power and speed capabilities of the F-35, and its role in the future.

“The F-35 has a production run all the way out to 2039, it’s going to be in service, literally, all the way out to about 2070, because every airplane has about a 30-year life,” said Mr. O’Bryan. “The question for Canada is, do you want to buy an airplane that’s going to be used, already by the three U.S. services, by eight countries who have procured money for the F-35, including Israel, Japan, six of the partner countries, all going through, or are you going to buy yesterday’s airplane?”

Mr. O’Bryan added: “The one thing I always think about is my dad, he was probably one of the last purchasers of the Sony Betamax, and I can tell you he wasn’t very happy about it.”

The KPMG review of the National Defence estimates in December forecast a total cost for Canada of $45.8-billion to acquire, sustain and operate an eventual fleet of 65 F-35s over a total of 42 years, including $1-billion to replace aircraft lost through attrition.

The government is conducting an analysis of acquisition, operating, and sustainment costs for four other fighter aircraft currently in production in the U.S. and Europe, possibly as a bridge between Canada's remaining fleet of 77 CF-18s set to retire in 2020 and the completed acquisition of a full F-35 fleet.

The government has also included Lockheed Martin and the F-35 in that review.

Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: Tim Naumetz

No comments:

Post a Comment