Cheney and Lockheed CEO Try to Keep Automatic Cuts from Happening in DoD

NOTE:  This post is being updated (7/18, 11:43 am) to share the email from the CEO of Lockheed to his employees about sequestering and possible layoffs which is now added at the end of this article.  The contacts my husband made over the years have come in handy!

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Don't know whether to laugh or get disgusted about the President of Lockheed who makes $26 million a year as of 2011 and received a raise for 2012, whose company has the F-22 with an oxygen problem where pilots refuse to fly and an F-35 which is over budget and behind schedule, saying there shouldn't be cuts at defense.  That doesn't even count the problems that still exist that it is too heavy to land on a carrier along with some other problems.  Did they ever get the wiring fixed in the bomb bay so it doesn't fry the electrical wiring?

For months test pilots had the privilege of piloting the plane to the tarmack but spending a lot of time on the simulators.  Why did the Air Force go down this path with Lockheed that is costing billions and at the end of the day the F-16 will still perform better in the combat role of today because its skin and plane is not a maintenance nightmare.  Navy and Marines don't want the F-35 -- they want upgrades to what they have.  Lockheed is set to go in the hole on the F-35 but some Congressional people who are in their hip pocket they hope will bail them out.  That's probably the real reason the Lockheed CEO met up with Cheney.

We would bet that the head of the House Armed Services McKeon (R-CA) is in the hip pockets of Northrup-Grumman and Lockheed -- doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.  If members of Congress were not so bought and paid for by Defense contractors, they would take a look at what these weapon systems like the F-35 are really costing.  Any major weapon system program like the F-35 that is this far behind schedule and still has major problems, it going to end up costing a lot more then was budgeted but Lockheed gave their CEO a raise for 2012.  Lockheed has been known over the years for being behind schedule and over budget on major weapon systems but yet the people at DoD continue to award them contracts and look the other way.  F-16 should have been fully upgraded but that doesn't fit the shiny and new of some of the Air Force generals.

Our family has been around DoD for well over 30 years and my husband longer.  He has been on both sides of source selection -- on the side that awards the contract and after retiring from Civil Service on the side of the contractor waiting for the award.  Anyone who says there is not a lot of waste in the Defense Department is either bought and paid for or is very naive and not around contracting.  He was the System Control Officer for the C-141 for Logistics/Materiel Command when it went through the stretch and he made numerous trips in and out of Marietta, GA, to the Lockheed plant.  He couldn't believe what he was seeing -- it was so bad that he took a job in the Air Force Contract Maintenance Center to travel overseas rather than deal with Lockheed where he was expected to turn his head and not see how bad it was but instead giving glowing reports after being wined and dined and trying to add on a  few extra dollars for him to use.  My husband was the wrong person to try and influence as those who know him well will tell you.  He was a pain in the neck to contractors but had the Air Force's best interest at heart.  Put it this way, contractors couldn't shove him around.  I used to type up his reports and would ask him if he was sure he wanted to say that and sure enough he was -- he told it like it was.

After our daughter was born, he decided he had enough of overseas travel and transferred to the F-16 heading support equipment and automatic test which were his areas of expertise.  The people at General Dynamics in Fort Worth who built the F-16 he considered the best people he had worked with but unfortunately that part of General Dynamics was bought out by Lockheed to add to Martin Marietta which my husband worked with when we were at Norton AFB, CA, on the MX and Minuteman missiles.  He called them honest.  When Lockheed bought out both companies, he said it was a sad day for the Air Force because he was convinced that Lockheed would bring its suspect practices to those two companies.  Sure enough they did so that companies who were respected for delivering on time and budget now were part of an atmosphere where delivering on time and on budget was foreign.

Ask a Martin or General Dynamics person what they think about working for Lockheed and most likely it is not printable.  Yet we have the President of Lockheed threatening pink slips to his employees if the Defense budget is cut (see email to employees at the end of this post).  The man should have been fired when former Secretary of Defense Gates found out that the F-35 was way behind schedule, had major problems, and was over budget.  In fact they were so over budget they started taking money from other parts of Lockheed which left the new innovative  It was the automated logistics information system (ALIS) that took the biggest hit for F35 when money was pulled from Logistics.  Lockheed needed the money allocated to the Logistics to throw away on aero and its incompetence.  Now he gets to retire with one of those golden parachutes paid for by the Defense Department and there is no savings can be made in the DoD?  Give me a break!

Put a group of long time civil service in a room who have to deal with these greedy aerospace contractors and bet they can come up with a lot of savings starting with the F-35 that is being forced on the Navy and Marine Corps.  I still remember getting a 2" thick document telling everyone how to do paperwork management to reduce the amount of paper being used in the 70's.  If you added all those documents in a stack, we didn't turn out that much paperwork in six months.  My boss at the time sent a letter back with the suggestion they quit sending out a page every time they wanted to change a few words in a regulation and he got back a 3-page reply why it was necessary.  We decided it was to keep some people employed because it was a waste.  From that day forward our office used to send in fraud, waste, and abuse comments to save the Government money.  My boss was transferred after three months to a base in northern part of the Country that handled missiles.  Imagine that!

Everyone I know in the DoD has stories of waste.  The latest for me is VDATS at Warner Robins meant to replace all the Automatic Test Systems that was approved by the DoD as the tester of choice before it was built.  Wonder if they ever got their security certificate for the system.  It was a boondoggle to save and add jobs at Warner Robins AFB.  Heard it is not going to be budgeted much longer after the F-16 group was able to get a waiver so they do not have to use the flawed system.  The F-16 which is the largest weapon system in the Air Force gets a waiver thanks to tenacious civil servant(s) who refused to take the word "no" as the final answer.  Should pretty much tank VDATS for use by major weapons systems.  Right there you have millions of savings where the people at Warner Robins wanted weapon systems to throw out perfectly good automatic test systems that needed upgraded for $10M to buy the new system (VDATS)_for over $100M that couldn't do the job.  There is a cost savings of at least $90M on each weapon system.  We are starting to talk some real savings.

That is a microcosm of savings that can be taken out of Defense.  Can it reach $50B a year?  I think it can because I can get to $1B in cuts today starting with the salaries of the leaders of the aerospace companies and go from there to how much they charge the DoD per manhour which is atrocious.  Threatening to lay off workers with notices days before the election is nothing short of blackmail -- call the CEO of Lockheed's bluff by having Lockheed hand over every piece of paperwork on the F-35 to see how the plane got so far behind schedule and over budget.  See how fast he backs off.  The CEO is also saying along with the cuts to employees they are going to jettison some real estate/facilities (tax write off if they donate a facility to a university?).

Cheney and the CEO of Lockheed can stop with the crocodile tears and be honest about the cuts that can be made that will not hurt the military.  It should not be a sacred cow but should have to explain its boondoggles of wasted tax dollars since 2000.  That is my opinion and I am sticking to it after years of seeing first hand the fraud, waste, and abuse in the DoD.

IMHO House Republicans helped put us in this mess of sequestering when the agreement was reached.  Their stubbornness in not compromising almost made the US go off a cliff.  I would tell both parties to grow up and stop the whine.  Work together for what is best for all Americans and put America before Party.

Cheney, Lockheed CEO deliver dire warnings of impact of automatic cuts
By Jeremy Herb and Carlo Munoz - 07/17/12 08:42 PM ET

Former Vice President Cheney made a rare trip to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to give House and Senate Republicans a dire assessment of what $500 billion in cuts to the Pentagon budget would mean for national security. 

Cheney’s appearance came amid a concerted lobbying push from the defense industry, which is trying to persuade Congress to act now on the sequester by warning the cuts will lead to massive job losses. 

Lockheed Martin CEO Bob Stevens, who will testify before a House panel on Wednesday, has threatened to issue layoff notices to all of his company’s 123,000 employees just before the November election. And the Aerospace Industries Association unveiled a new study Tuesday that claimed 2 million jobs could be lost due to the automatic cuts that are scheduled for both the defense and domestic sectors. 

Defense hawks hope that the flurry of activity will put the issue in the public eye and convince Congress to act. 

Cheney, who served as Defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush, told the Senate GOP conference that sequestration could have a damaging long-term impact on the military by killing major weapons programs, according to senators at the meeting. 

“He just talked about the stupidity of the sequester, where you cut everything the same,” said Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). 

Cheney’s appearance underscored the effort Republicans are making to apply pressure to Democrats, who are threatening to walk away from the negotiating table on sequestration unless the GOP agrees to tax increases. 

“It was just really a very sensible presentation about how sequester is a blunt object,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said of Cheney’s talk. “He did talk about his time as Defense secretary in the ’90s and how he benefited from investments made the decade before.” 

Cheney did not discuss potential fixes for the cuts, GOP senators said, or other foreign-policy issues such as Syria. 

Democrats were decidedly unimpressed. White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said it was “odd” that Republicans “would be taking budget advice from somebody who famously declared that ‘deficits don’t matter.’ ” 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) questioned Cheney’s motives, noting his ties to the military contractor and oil giant Halliburton. 

“We know that before he became vice president, he worked for Halliburton,” Reid told reporters. “Halliburton did extremely well during his time as vice president, and I assume there’s going to be some concern about Halliburton again in this conversation they’re going to have today.” 

The sequestration debate is likely to dominate Capitol Hill on Wednesday, when defense executives will testify before the House Armed Services Committee and the House takes up the Sequestration Transparency Act, which requires reports from the Obama administration on the impact of the cuts. 

Stevens, one of four executives scheduled to testify before the panel, has led the charge in the defense industry to warn about job losses from sequestration. 

(snip)

Democrats have been adamant that any compromise on sequestration must include revenue increases or the elimination of tax loopholes for the wealthiest Americans. 

“You can’t get there without revenue [increases] on the table,” Shaheen said, reiterating her party’s line. 

Republican lawmakers, however, have been opposed to any effort allowing the Bush-era tax rates to expire. 

At a media event last month, Stevens said he thought all options had to be included in a deficit-reduction deal, including discretionary spending, mandatory spending and new revenues.
The Lockheed CEO, who is retiring at the end of the year, is expected to urge Congress on Wednesday to find a solution now in order to give the industry some certainty. 

Stevens has said that his company would be required to put out layoff notices just days before the election due to federal 60-day reporting requirements. 

Republicans have supported Stevens’s threat, saying the layoff notices will help the public understand the impact of sequestration. 

“I’d just as soon they did it tomorrow,” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Tuesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he would understand if the companies decided to issue pink slips before the election, but doubts it would have much impact at the polls. 

“I think by then probably most people will have made up their minds,” Levin said. “That’s my hunch.” 

Excerpt:  Read More at The Hill

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DATE: July 18, 2012

TO: All Lockheed Martin U.S. Employees

FROM: Bob Stevens, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer

Chris Kubasik, Vice Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer

SUBJECT: Straight Talk On Sequestration

Over the past several months, you may have seen news coverage about our position on a federal law passed last year and the negative effects it will have on our nation and our industry. And in the weeks ahead, you will hear more from us on this subject. It’s called sequestration.

Under the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011, the Department of Defense committed to reduce spending by $487 billion over the next 10 years, with $47 billion of that occurring in this year’s budget.

Like every company in our industry, we feel the effects of those reductions, but we understand the fiscal pressures our nation faces and we are doing our part.

However, there is a provision in the BCA known as sequestration, which was originally designed as a mechanism to force bipartisan cooperation on deficit spending and debt reduction – a process that failed. As a result, sequestration now requires $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts in U.S. government discretionary spending beginning January 2, 2013. Half that total is expected to come from defense spending; the rest from other domestic spending, including education and infrastructure. This would result in $492 billion in reductions for defense over the next nine years in addition to the $487 billion mentioned above.

We believe sequestration is the single greatest challenge facing our company and our industry. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said sequestration will have catastrophic consequences for our nation’s defense because it was developed without consideration for national security strategy, force structure, technology needs or operational reality. We agree, and we have candidly and publicly voiced our concerns with our government customers, members of Congress, and our industry partners.

With little guidance from the government on the specifics of sequestration, it is difficult to determine the impact of these cuts on our employees, programs and suppliers. We do know, however, that we have responsibilities under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act to provide 60 days’ notice to employees of a facility closure or major layoff. New York law requires 90 days’ notice. As we continue our analysis, we see that these laws could result in the need to issue conditional WARN notices to a substantial number of our employees, starting late in the third quarter.

We know this is unsettling information and you are probably asking, “Will I be affected?” Our very rough estimate of the number of employees who could be affected, based on the limited information available to us from the government, is about 10,000. We’d prefer to give you more clarity and details, and we will, just as soon as we get specific guidance from the government.

Until then, we ask that you remain focused on our global security mission. We know that you care deeply about the work you do in support of our nation and our customers, and we ask that you continue to help us meet our commitments to our customers as the sequestration debate plays out. At the same time, we will continue doing everything we can to encourage government leaders to find a better solution to the nation’s fiscal challenges than sequestration.

At Lockheed Martin, we have a seasoned leadership team and a strong strategy focused on growing our company in core, adjacent and international markets that is reliant on our continued strong performance. And we have you, the best employees in the business. As we embark on our second century as a successful enterprise supporting the U.S. government and our allies, we are committed to making sure our company, our industry, and our nation remain strong and vital.

One way we’ll do that is by continuing to voice our concerns about sequestration at every opportunity. If you would like to find out more about the effort to stop sequestration, visit the Aerospace Industries Association's Stop Sequestration website here.

Thank you, as always, for your commitment to Lockheed Martin, our customers and our nation.

Even with the challenges we face, our customers need us to focus with the full concentration and complete dedication that have been hallmarks of your work. We have great confidence in our future success because of our confidence in you.

Editor’s Note: Bob Stevens is testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee today on the impact of sequestration. You can see Bob’s statement for the record here.

Is The F-35 Strike Fighter The Military Chevy Volt?

This headline made my crack up and then I remembered as a taxpayer how we were being taken to the cleaners with the F-35.  What a boondoggle and waste of taxpayer dollars.  The Air Force has test pilots sitting around doing simulators when they were brought into the test out the new plane.  Some get to start the engines and drive it around a little just like the Volt but that's it.  Too dangerous to take in the air.

Have they fixed the wiring problem in the weapons bay or have they managed to get the F-35 under weight to land on a carrier?  Those are only a few of the problems.  How about the new and shiny logistics system that would download the status of the plane on landing if something had to be fixed?  Aero took the money from logistics so the LM Star Tester will most likely be the tester of choice unless they go to Warner Robins for their dog of a tester, VDATS.  The F-16 received a waiver not to use VDATS so there should be no way that Lockheed uses that system but then when you are looking to curry favor with the Air Force bigwigs who knows.

Try cost overruns and way behind schedule when the President of Lockheed guaranteed then Secretary of Defense Gates that everything was going according to schedule and any schedule problems would be fixed.  Still waiting for problems to be fixed and get back on schedule.  After reading this article from IBD, sounds like the problems with the F-35 still exist and in bigger numbers.

Will the F-35 be the same mechanic's nightmare as the F-22?  Whoever was in charge of source selection for the F-22 and F-35 blew it.  Guess this explains why the FOIA request for the F-35 was never answered -- they still have major problems and still wasting tax dollar money.  Guess others are waking up to the fact that one size does not fit all when it comes to military planes.  All these questions and so few answers out of Lockheed.  Where this ends up is anyone's guess.  Rumor has Lockheed shopping some of their groups to get money for the F-35 because the well of dollars at the DoD is running dry pretty fast.

Read this article and ask yourself why we are wasting so much money and yet the DoD wants you to think there is no place to cut.  The way contracts are awarded would be a great starting point because transferring the major weapon systems programs to the Headquarters to be Super System Program Offices (SPOs) is not working.  The merging of  AF Force Logistics Command and AF Systems Command into AF Materiel Command (AFMC) back in the early 90's doesn't seem to have worked out all that well either because of the lack of oversight.  They new weapons systems were better when controlled at the Aeronautical Systems Center SPO's made up of systems and logistics types at Wright-Patterson AFB with less pressure from the inside the beltway types.  The F-16 back in the 80's is a perfect example of cooperation between ASC, AFMC, AFSC, and the Hill AFB depot that is in charge of the F-16.  

Whatever the answer, the F-35 is not doing very well in meeting the standards that were promised by Lockheed.

Is The F-35 Strike Fighter The Military Chevy Volt?
Posted 06:59 PM ET 

Defense: Pilots who arrived a year ago to train on the fighter of the future are still waiting as safety concerns, cost overruns and questions about the whole program's feasibility mount.
The F-35 is meant to be America's next-generation fighter, the heir to the Air Force's F-15 Eagle and the Navy's and Marines' F/A-18 Hornet. Those two aircraft have fulfilled their air superiority and ground-attack roles well, yet many are well beyond their expected life expectancy. 

The F-35 would fill America's defense needs in an age of budget constraints, we were told. So far it has not been a smooth takeoff.  

About 35 of the best fighter pilots from the Air Force, Marines and Navy who arrived in the Florida Panhandle last year to learn to fly the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter are still waiting. They've been limited to occasionally taxying them and firing up the engines. 

Otherwise, their training is limited to three F-35 flight simulators, classroom work and flights in older-model jets. Only a handful of pilots get to fly the F-35s. 

Concerns have arisen, ranging from improperly installed parachutes under the pilots' ejector seats to whether the aircraft have been adequately tested. 

Production has been slow and delayed, and the cost has risen from $233 billion to $385 billion. Only 43 F-35s have been built, and an additional 2,443 have been ordered by the Pentagon.
Part of the problem is that the F-35 is a one-size-fits-all aircraft designed to fit roles from taking off a carrier's deck to hovering and landing in a confined space on a foreign battlefield. It's meant to be a ground-attack and air-superiority fighter. The question is whether it can adequately be both. 

As we learned in past conflicts, relying on one-size-fits-all aircraft can be perilous. Our reliance on the carrier-based F-4 Phantom during Vietnam is a case in point. An aircraft designed to hunt down Soviet bombers during the Cold War, it carried missiles but no guns and was ill-suited for dogfights against MiG fighters designed for a single role — that of air superiority. 

That was the role originally designated for the F-22 Raptor, a stealth fighter designed to simply sweep the skies of enemy jets and let other aircraft do their thing. Production was stopped at only 187 planes, with the excuse given that we couldn't afford multiple aircraft for different roles. So the F-35 was designated as our flying jack-of-all-trades. 

Excerpt:  Read More at IBD

Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in the Air Force, Part II

After having more questions and answers last fall, we began researching to try and understand what was happening to the Automatic Test Equpment business. Our research led to some interesting findings and perhaps the most interesting was discovering a huge Obama donor was involved with Teradyne the major supplier of Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) ATE parts to the Warner Robins Depot.

Some answers began appearing in January 2009. There was an article in January 09 on Top Stock Picks – Teradyne” which said: "Teradyne could further boost its market position by buying more competitors or just watching them go out of business. We view Teradyne as a very solid company whose stock should soar when the semiconductor industry begins to rebound. We recommend buying Teradyne up to 6." What was this all about? Did this person prepare the way for an investor to make big bucks by buying Teradyne.

In researching, it was discovered after this article came out, that George Soros bought stock in Teradyne, which immediately brought to question WHY? Then you discover that Teradyne became the company of choice to buy COTS for the depot to build more Versatile Data Automatic Test Systems (VDATS). Even in January 09, the full picture of what was about to happen was not clear. Within months of this article it changed from ‘consider’ VDATS which was not fully operational, to VDATS MUST be used. This left the companies who have been in the Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) business for years asking why. No real answers were forthcoming. In May 2009, Soros purchased more Teradyne stock.

The depot realized they would require more help to assemble these test stations so they put out a solicitation with the statement you had to use Teradyne parts and attached a price list for Teradyne to buy the parts to build these stations. The solicitation was pulled off the street before the holidays in 2009. Then the solicitation came back on the street recently, and it was discovered that Teradyne, who is the majority supplier of parts, had raised their prices. Since the depot released this solicitation, they had to know prices had risen. Was this reason for pulling it back before the holidays?

Essentially what the Robins Depot is doing is asking companies to bid on a contract that will put them out of business? If that isn't rich, nothing is.
There are approximately 67 companies in various parts of Automatic Test Systems from the companies who provide the complete system (hardware and software) to ones providing various parts and software used in the system. Companies in the Automatic Test business spend millions on upgrading their equipment, testing, and ensuring the Air Force weapons systems get the most for their dollar. Today the depot is turning private companies away in favor of their own VDATS which is an erector set and now has to have R&D to make it work.

The ATS for the F-35 was supposed to be this super system by Lockheed LM Star never seen before. The pilot would fly in and the data would be automatically downloaded to the ATE as he landed so they would know what was wrong with circuit cards in the plane. Last we heard there was no money to build this system, as Lockheed aero needed the money for the aero side. Lockheed was looking at VDATS, which makes no sense when their LM Star is one of the four systems on the market along with BAE (IAIS), ATTI (BRAT) and Northrop Grumman (IFTE). We would hope the DoD is not going to buy off on that VDATS boondoggle and instead would require Lockheed to take more money out of hide to give the F-35 program what was promised in the contract.

We think it unlikely that we would have VDATS for the F-35 but then we cannot believe that the F-16 program, which has just completed upgrading their test equipment from BAE,was told they need to go to VDATS and to put VDATS along with R&D in the budget. We are not sure if the F-16 complied or the depot put it in the budget for them.

We have yet to hear about AWACS but since VDATS is not deployable and does little RF, we would expect them to balk at any Robin’s request

Instead of fixing the Global Hawk problem of currently sending everything back to the contractor, which is more expensive to do the testing instead of buying ATS, the depot wants VDATS for Global Hawk as well. Global Hawk currently has contractor support to keep them in the skies over Afghanistan.

Does anyone at Warner Robins or the Pentagon care that they are on the verge of putting 67 companies, a lot of them small businesses, out of business in favor of bringing ATE in house as VDATS along with hundreds of engineers are being put on the Government payroll at Robins? In the process they will be giving the weapons system an inferior product. Are they trying to nationalize this segment of the military contracting business?

Air Force Materiel Command several years ago tried to take money from the Oklahoma City ALC at Tinker AFB, OH, back to Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, including on the B-52 when the B-52 had never been at Wright-Patterson, in order to save jobs at Aeronautical Systems Center (ASC) since they lost the ‘Super Systems Program Offices (SPO’s) as there are none of the huge major contracts for new weapons systems left at ASC In the Materiel Command attempt to take the money, they learned they couldn’t touch depot funds. It never should have happened, as it is well known that you cannot mix different colors of money in DoD, but that did not stop them from trying.

One major problem we see is that a lot of moves of programs and people are done to protect bases/assets from the Base Realignment and Closure Commission even when it makes no sense to make the moves. There seems to be a huge void of common sense in the Air Force today. Lessons learned over the years look to be ignored as the Air Force forges ahead trying to build a better mousetrap. Sometimes it pays to look back at what has happened to get the Air Force to this position.

When Bill Clinton came to office, George H.W. Bush had put the mergers in play in the Air Force and merger mania became the name of the game inside and outside the Air Force. We now have everything 'super' in the Air Force to the detriment of the mission. When the F-16 was brought on board, we had many companies who specialized in certain parts of the plane who were given a piece of the contract and worked together along with the Air Force.

Now we have these super companies who build aircraft -- Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing. Take a look at these three and you see three giants who merged with other major companies -- Lockheed with Martin Marietta, Northrop with Grumman and Boeing who took over McDonnell Douglas and kept their original name. Their management of these three companies was paid over $20M each for these mergers. What benefit has it gained? Waste of taxpayer dollars for one.

Look at where this 'merger' mentality has gotten us today -- Lockheed bids on a contract and gives part of the contract to their Logistics operation. There is one major flaw -- they share the contract now within their own company instead of being partnered with an independent contractor. When Lockheed Aero needs money for any problem with the plane such as the F-35 being overweight for a carrier, Lockheed takes the money from their own logistics leaving them with little dollars to develop the systems they need to sustain the aircraft. Lockheed could not do that with another company.

L-3 awarded a contract to ADVINT, LLC, a member of the Teradyne Support Network, near the end of the year for work on the F-35 when this work was originally bid to be done in house at Lockheed. Why? Is the answer because they have little money left in the logistics side to do the work? The other ‘Why’ still being asked is Why would Lockhood even consider helping on VDATS to put the LM Star out of business. That effort to help sent a signal to the depot that they were prime to use VDATS on the F-35 and have not been shy about telling people that.

ATE and support equipment are only a small portion of what is wrong on the F-35 but did some Lockheed people look at VDATS as a way to cover up the cost-overrun and behind schedule that Lockheed was facing on the F-35? Where was the Air Force Program Review Office (AFPRO) at the AF Plant at Fort Worth when the plane fell behind and went over budget? It is their responsibility to ensure everything is going smoothly and schedule is being met. Did anyone report the overrun and behind schedule to the Super SPO at the Pentagon. When did the cover-up start and how high did it go? Who knows, but we suspect it went higher than the head of 'Super' SPO who was fired. How much of it is true or rumor? We have double checked our sources but for now would prefer to leave it as substantiated rumors coming out of Texas.

Complicating all of this goes back to the merger of Air Force Logistics and Air Force Systems Commands on July 1, 1992, no thanks to the first Bush Administration. Checks and balances are now gone from the Air Force into one Command -- the 'Super' Air Force Materiel Command where everything is in one big pot now for the weapon systems. One major problem is that Logistics is now considered the same as Systems down to the depots and it is not working as the Command morphed into System Command's 'bright and shiny' mentality. Gone are the days when there were two commands fighting for money to be replaced by one 'Super' Command who calls the shots and when one side goes out of bounds, there is no one to bring them back in bounds like on the F-35.

Before the merger, Logistics people in the SPO would have been making visits to Lockheed to check their progress on a host of items starting with their Automatic Test System (ATS) under development and would have discovered very quickly something was wrong and Lockheed had pulled money from logistics to aero.
Many people questioned establishing the so called ‘Super’ SPOs in the Pentagon to handle the new large weapon systems like the Tanker, F-22, and F-35 that would be coming into the pipeline. For years they had been at Aeronautical Systems Division at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, but now Acquisition of large weapon systems being moved to the Pentagon presented a whole new set of challenges. Some considered the close proximity to DC a problem because of potential political influences but the concerns were brushed aside.

Others thought that the ‘Super SPO’s’ would not have the necessary on-site contact with the manufactures involved in the new weapon system which in a lot of instances has turned out to be the case. Instead of visiting the sites, they have chosen to have the contractors come to the Pentagon to give their briefings, which has given credence to some earlier fears. Ask the Marine Corps General in charge of the F-35 Joint Program Office how well that worked out to receive Pentagon briefings since he was fired from the F-35.

Let’s look at the track record of the Super SPO’s.

Tanker contract still not awarded after years and years but the people in the office keep right on drawing high salaries. The last time they awarded the contract to Northrop Grumman, Boeing protested and they pulled back the award and changed the solicitation. Now Northrop Grumman objects and they do nothing. Air Force is wasting a lot of tax dollars on salaries to get nowhere.

F-22 had all kinds of problems while under development and because of the stealth feature is a maintenance nightmare. Now it has been cancelled and capped at a low number. How about Foreign Military Sales (FMS)? Crickets chirping. One devastating substantiated rumor we heard was that the salesmen for the F-22 were told to push the F-16 overseas as it was a better plane. We have spent billions of dollars and the F-16 is better? Maybe what should have happened is for the F-16 to have been upgraded and forget the F-22.

F-35 problems were ignored as Lockheed continued to fall behind in schedule and cost overrun the program trying to get the plane underweight for the carrier and a host of other problems such as wiring problems in the missile bays. Problems are not unexpected on a new weapon system. However, the fact that the problems on the F-35 were ignored and a rosy picture was painted by Lockheed officials as late as last fall should have been detected long before they were a problem.

The Air Force has an AFPRO at the major Air Force plants like the AF plant at Fort Worth leased by Lockheed from the government. That office is the first line of defense for the Air Force and if they don’t keep close controls, the contract can get out of a hand in a hurry. Being overweight for a carrier has been common knowledge in the defense industry for sometime so there was no excuse for the Super SPO not to know. The AFPRO didn’t do their job but neither did anyone in the chain – looks like the “I know nothing” philosophy was at play.

As for Lockheed, the day they took one dime from logistics to aero, the Air Force should have been told. Now they have the Air Force and the taxpayers over a barrel and look to be milking it for all it is worth. Talk about salaries of Wall Street. How about the President of Lockheed Martin making over $20M (closer to $30) a year? No wonder our planes cost so much with salaries like that.

Is the DoD going to really look into the cost overrun or are they going to turn a blind eye and eventually give Lockheed all the money they want?

Bottom line is the F-16 in the 70's was a great example of a joint operation of then Systems and Logistics Commands, which worked very well in conjunction with General Dynamics at Fort Worth. That model of major weapon system being brought into the inventory was thrown out the window. Was the reason to save jobs at the Pentagon by making Super SPO’s? If it was to keep more control, it failed miserably on the F-35.
It is obvious by what is happening the Air Force has a real problem in the way they are operating today not only on brand, new weapon systems but on the systems that provide support for the aircraft. Sometimes old ways of doing business are better and in the long run will save a lot of money. We know these ideas have been discussed before and today they still have merit:

1. Super SPO's -- return them to ASC at Wright-Patterson AFB where they have the labs and know how to do the job without political pressure. Whatever minor problems they had in the past is nothing compared to what the Super SPO's have done while being in the political arena of the Pentagon.

2. With a return of the SPO's to ASC, then it is time for the Air Force to admit that Logistics and Systems was a bad marriage and need a divorce. They were much better Commands as adversaries instead of together. That would return checks and balances to the operation.

3. Depots are there for a reason to overhaul the aircraft and once they entered into the world of Systems Command, it has been a disaster and translated into a gigantic money pit. They want to be like ASC and that was never intended. Now, an Operating Command has to beg the Robins depot for an upgrade for their ATS, get turned down and told to spend at least ten times as much money for a new system they don't want along with now having to budget for R&D. The depots were only given systems like Automatic Test and Avionics to strengthen the depots to prevent BRAC closure, which obviously didn't work since Kelly AFB was put on the BRAC and closed.

4. Automatic Test Equipment/Systems, Avionics, and any other of the support systems of the aircraft need to go back to ASC who will at least play fair with the weapons systems. The other two depots Tinker and Hill AFBs do not have the same problem and we are not sure why. All we know is that there is not enough money in the Air Force for the WR-ALC at Robins to be wasting money to try and manufacture something in the depot that is already available from a number of companies

NOTE: All information contained in this document came from public sources along with a few individual sources. If anyone would like further information on this, please send an email to

http://www.blogger.com/truesoft.474@gmail.com

Are the F-22 and F-35 the Tip of the Iceberg for Taxpayers?

After reading this article from IBD and starting to write up comments, it hit that this is only the tip of the iceberg in the Air Force for wasting money. It is easy to spot the waste of money when we are talking about a new shiny plane like the F-22 or F-35, but what about other peripheral but extremely necessary systems that are wasting millions and millions of dollars.

Starting next week we will delve into the contracting world of the Air Force -- you will be left shaking your head, shocked, and angry to realize these are your tax dollars at work.

We are going to give you the background that has led up to this point starting in the early 90's when checks and balances pretty much were thrown out the window. Those checks and balances lie at the root of the problem that a lot of things wrong on the F-35 were not discovered a lot earlier. This is not a Democrat or Republican problem as it spans four Presidencies starting with GHW Bush to Barack Obama.

One example of this culture of 'mega and bright, shiny, and new' found its way into the Automatic Test Systems (ATS) group at the Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC). We will detail what is happening and how this one small program that is so vital to the weapons systems is wasting millions of tax dollars and planning to to turn that into the billions by their actions. In the process, they will be putting over 60 business entities out of work and hiring lots of civil service.

ATS affects every Air Force weapon system including the F-35 which was promised to have the latest and best ATS ever. Is Lockheed going to deliver that product promised in the contract or are they out of money and will have to rely on the depot?

We filed the Freedom of Information paperwork not only on the ATE but also on the F-35. We received a reply back that was extremely short on data (none) and long on half truths and arrogance on ATE and nothing on the F-35.

With over 100 years of experience between us dealing with the Air Force as military, employees, and contractors, you know when something isn't right. That is what has happened to us when the FOI answer was received.

Read this article below which is excellent, but understand this is only the tip of the iceberg. Stay tuned next week for the beginning of a series that details not the F-35 but other systems as well and how it relates to our tax dollars.

F-22 Or F-35: The Plane Truth
Feb 5, 2010

Defense: The administration decision to scrap a proven aircraft in favor of a supposedly cheaper, more flexible replacement is proving to be an expensive mistake. We may wind up defenseless and broke.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that was supposed to be America's frontline fighter for the foreseeable future is in big trouble. Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the general in charge of the program this week amid concerns of spiraling costs and program delays.

Gates also announced he is withholding $614 million in fees from the prime contractor, Lockheed Martin. Daniel J. Crowley, one of Lockheed Martin's project managers, has acknowledged that the program is running at least six months behind schedule.

Gates was questioned about the program at a Senate hearing on Tuesday. He said he was unaware of a report by a special Pentagon assessment team in late 2008 that found development of the plane could be delayed by 2 1/2 years with $16.6 billion in cost overruns. Judging by his decisions, he is not unaware that the F-35 program, designed to fill the needs of all three services, is in trouble.

After hearing Gates' testimony, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said: "I'm still concerned about whether the services will get the (Joint Strike Fighters) when they need them."
He's right to be concerned: Further program delays will drive up per-unit costs, the wings are literally falling off our F-15s and F-16s, and the administration has killed further production of the F-22 Raptor. With what will we fight?

We've seen this one-size-fits-all, on-the-cheap procurement policy before. The 1960s saw the development of the TFX (Tactical Fighter Experimental), later the F-111, which was supposed to fill all requirements from being a land-based fighter-bomber to a carrier-based aircraft. It wound up too heavy to be a carrier jet and not fast or agile enough to be in a dogfight. Other aircraft had to be procured to fill those needs.

Production of the F-22 Raptor was capped at 187 in the defense cuts slated for the fiscal 2010 budget, with the last aircraft slated to be delivered in late 2011 or early 2012. It was felt we couldn't afford both an F-22 dedicated to air superiority and the F-35, even though the latter is vastly inferior in both air-to-air combat and ground-defense penetration.

The Raptor is perhaps the only plane that could evade the sophisticated S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system Russia has contracted to sell Iran. "Only the F-22 can survive in airspace defended by increasingly capable surface-to-air missiles," declares Air Force Association President Mike Dunn.

Source: IBD