Pencil Whipped

You’ve all heard about the Marine’s recent operational assessment of the F-35B, the results of which formed the basis for the Commandant’s recommendation to declare Initial Operating Capability (IOC) for the aircraft.  You’ve also heard, here and elsewhere, that the assessment was barely able to achieve 50% aircraft availability.  What you haven’t heard is the rest of the story.  It’s far, far worse.

You’ll recall that the Michael Gilmore, DOT&E, the Pentagon’s weapon tester, wrote a memo describing the assessment in which he noted the lack of aircraft availability.  You can follow the link at the bottom of the post to see the actual memo (1).

Note:  Thanks to reader AltandMain for the link.

Let’s look a bit closer at what else was in the memo.

For starters, despite the Marines calling it an operational test (Operational Test One was the Marine’s title), Gilmore points out that it was not an operational test.  He presents a long list of reasons why it was not a valid operational test in any sense of the word (his assessment, not mine).  Let me sum up his reasons by saying that it’s clear that the aircraft involved in the test were not operationally representative nor were the conditions surrounding the test.  You can read the particulars yourself.

The memo documents in great detail, on a day by day, mission by mission, and aircraft by aircraft basis the availability issues that plagued the exercise.  What has not been reported but is documented in the memo are the additional factors that in a real world operation would have made the availabilities even worse.  Because the assessment was not an operationally realistic one, many of the aircraft systems that were or became inoperable were ignored.  In an actual operational setting their failures would have resulted in additional “downs”.

Of the six initial aircraft for the test, one had to be replaced part way through due to a fuel system maintenance issue that could not be fixed.  Again, in an actual operation, that aircraft would have been permanently unavailable (or, at least unavailable for an extended period).  Instead, the aircraft was replaced with a fresh one – certainly a distortion of the availability data!

Here is a summary of the daily aircraft operations and availabilities.  The memo describes the operations and specific availabilities in complete detail.  Again, follow the link to read the details.  Remember, there are 6 aircraft that should be fully mission capable each day.

May 18 – fly aboard six aircraft;  1 Not Mission Capable (NMC)

May 19 – daytime carrier qualifications;  1 NMC

May 20 – day/night carrier qualifications;  3 NMC

May 21 – day/night carrier qualifications;  4 NMC, 1 Partial Mission Capable (PMC)

May 22 – day/night carrier qualifications and misc training;  4 NMc, 1 PMC

May 23 – tactical training;  3 NMC

May 24 – tactical training;  4 NMC, 1 PMC

May 25 – tactical training;  2 NMC, 1 PMC

May 26 – media demo and replacement aircraft swap;  4 NMC, 1 PMC

May 27 – tactical training;  2 NMC

As you can see, the availabilities were poor and would have been poorer if many of the system failures hadn’t been ignored.  The stated 50% availability would have been on the order of 20% if this had been a real operation or real operational assessment.  Only one aircraft managed to fly each day throughout the exercise.  This is grim – all the more so for aircraft that were undoubtedly carefully selected for good performance and tweaked prior to the assessment.  Even this summary, grim as it is, does not convey all the failures.  Some aircraft were unavailable for scheduled missions but were eventually fixed in time to be counted mission capable by the end of the day.  Again, worse than presented.

Beyond availability, there were other problems, some not previously reported.

The flight mission data from the cockpit multi-function displays (MFD) and helmet mounted displays (HMD) were found to require large amounts of time to download.  The MFDs required 1 hour of download per hour of recording while the HMD required 4 hours of download per hour of recording.  It was noted that those kinds of time frames would adversely affect mission sortie rates.  I have no idea what the technical issue is but in the commercial world we can transfer gigabytes of data in moments.  This kind of problem seems incomprehensible.

Communications were also an issue.  Link 16 comms to the carrier were generally unworkable with the F-35 and carrier unable to send or receive target tracks.  Comms between aircraft were occasionally troublesome, also.  The memo notes that comms were not the focus of the exercise and the pilots did not write up the problems for maintenance – another example of potential aircraft “downs” that were not taken into account.

Radar and Electro-Optical systems were generally considered positive despite minor problems that should not be present after two decades of development and impending IOC.

Numerous problems were noted relating to the Autonomic Logistic Information System (ALIS).  Workarounds had to be deployed to transfer maintenance data.  Data files were found to be missing, corrupted, or incorrect.

Many more problems were cited in the memo although, to be fair, many were of the “to be expected” variety resulting from first time operations at sea.

Remember that this demonstration was carried out with extensive contractor support and ready access to shore based spares and equipment - conditions that would not be present in either a real operation or a real operational assessment.  Again, the availabilities would have been even worse without these aids.

Overall, the memo paints a far more serious and damning picture of the F-35’s readiness for operations than the Navy led us to believe.  Frankly, it’s baffling that the Marines would conclude that this was in any way a successful demonstration of the F-35’s readiness for IOC.  Calling this a successful demonstration is pencil whipping of the highest order!

So, if the demonstration wasn’t a valid operational assessment and the aircraft resoundingly failed from an availability perspective, what was the purpose of the "test"?  It’s pretty clear that it was intended as a media justification for declaring IOC regardless of the outcome.  Since it was not a valid test, nor even a DOT&E sanctioned test, there were no criteria and, thus, no possibility of failure.  The demonstration was just an exercise in justifying a predetermined decision to declare IOC.  My last shreds of respect for the Marine Corps as an institution are flying out the window.  We all had high hopes for the new Commandant but those hopes have been crushed with this demonstration.  Very disappointing.

[Update:  I see that the excellent Snafu website has a similar post up.  Rest assured that this is just coincidence and/or great minds thinking alike!  Go here to see his article:  Snafu]

(1)http://www.pogoarchives.org/straus/2015-9-1-DoD-FOIA-ocr.pdf