In 2002, in a surprise decision, the then Defence Minister announced that the planned AIR 6000 flyoff to choose Australia's future fighter aircraft was to be effectively stopped, with the developmental Joint Strike Fighter declared to be the preferred aircraft type.



The Joint Strike Fighter is not designed to perform air superiority roles, unlike the larger F-22A, and is not well adapted to performing the penetrating long range strike role filled by the F-111 until 2010.



There has been considerable adverse press associated with JSF cost overruns, project delays, and other difficulties observed in this program.



The JSF Program and resulting aircraft designs have, since the very first days of the program, been burdened by fatal optimism, a total indifference to what is real, placement of form over substance, the acquisition malpractice of concurrency and the fact that the STOVL F-35B is the baseline for all three variants, having dictated and constrained most if not all key aircraft parameters in the definition and resulting design of the other two JSF variants.



The F-35 JSF aircraft designs will not meet specification nor the operational requirements laid down in the JSF JORD (Joint Operational Requirements Document) by significant degrees, noting that these operational requirements and resulting specifications, themselves, were predicated on the capabilities of reference threats from an era past and subsequently subjected to the illogical and deeply flawed process known as CAIV (Cost As an Independent Variable).



The designs of all three JSF variants are presenting with critical single points of failure while even the most basic elements of aircraft design (e.g. weight, volume, aerodynamics, structures, thermal management, electrical power, etc.) will almost certainly end up in what Engineers call "Coffin Corner".



In essence, the unethical Thana Marketing strategy used to sell the JSF, along with the acquisition malpractice of concurrency in not only development, production and testing but the actual designs of the JSF variants, themselves, have resulted in the JSF marketeers writing cheques that the aircraft designs and JSF Program cannot honour.



A more detailed summary of these points is available in Hansard, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, 07/02/2012, Inquiry into the Department of Defence annual report 2010-11 and associated Submissions by Air Power Australia. Further technical discussion can be found in the OSD DOT&E FY2012 Annual Report.



This website indexes a selection of relevant articles, submissions and papers.



