By Cheryl Pellerin
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, July 25, 2014 – The official rollout of the
first two F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter aircraft for the Royal
Australian Air Force is a milestone in the U.S.-Australia partnership, the
undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics said
yesterday.
Frank Kendall spoke during a ceremony held on the flightline
at the Lockheed Martin aviation facility in Fort Worth, Texas.
"We join Australia, as one of our original partners, to
celebrate this delivery and the numerous Australian contributions to the joint
strike fighter program," Kendall said.
"For both our nations," he added, "this
program represents an exponential leap in capability on the cutting edge of
technology, and an integral component of our ongoing joint commitment to
stability and peace in the Asia-Pacific."
The two F-35A aircraft, known as AU-1 and AU-2, are
scheduled for delivery to the Australian air force later this year. They will
be based at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and used for Australian and
partner-country pilot training beginning next year. The first F-35s to operate
in Australia are expected by 2017.
The F-35 Lightning II program consists of a series of
single-seat, single-engine, multirole fighters designed with stealth capability
to perform ground attack, reconnaissance and air defense missions. The three
variants of the F-35 include the F-35A, a conventional takeoff and landing
variant; the F-35B, a short take-off and vertical-landing variant; and the
F-35C, a carrier-based variant.
Joining Kendall as members of the official party were
Australian Finance Minister and Senator Matthias Cormann, Air Marshal Geoff
Brown, chief of the Royal Australian Air Force, and Lockheed Martin CEO
Marillyn Hewson.
Kendall told an audience of about 300 that it takes a
community to accomplish something as significant as the F-35.
"In this case it takes a community of nations, it takes
a community of companies, it takes a community of militaries and departments
within the U.S. and around the world, and all of our partners. It takes a
community of industry to come together," the undersecretary added.
"This aircraft is a testimony to our ability to do that."
Kendall described a time two decades ago when he served at the
Pentagon as director of tactical warfare programs under then-Deputy Defense
Secretary John M. Deutch.
"John got a number of us together one day,” he
recalled, “and said that he'd decided [to] start a new technology program
called the joint strike technology program that would lead to a common set of
aircraft, of which there would be three variants: one for the Marine Corps, one
for the Air Force and one for the Navy."
Kendall said he didn't think it would work, because the
communities would never agree on what to do, or stay together on the agreement
long enough to develop three such aircraft.
"Now if John had said, 'Also, we're going to make it a
little more interesting by bringing on eight international partners at the same
time,' I would have just thrown my hands up in the air and said, 'Forget about
it.'" he added.
Admitting he was wrong, Kendall said the “fundamental reason
[for the program’s success] is the capability that we've been able to develop
and the cutting-edge capability we're offering to all the partners, all the
services, all the nations involved in the F-35."
The program's eight partner nations and two Foreign Military
Sales countries already have announced plans to procure nearly 700 F-35s. The
program of record outlines the acquisition of more than 3,000 aircraft, defense
officials say.
Many partners have ordered their first aircraft, and pilots
and maintainers from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have taken delivery
of their first F-35 aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, where they're
training with U.S. counterparts.
The communities supporting the F-35 have stayed together
because of common values and shared interests, Kendall said, and because they
are committed to having next-generation capability and a multirole fighter that
all partners need and will be able to depend on for decades.
In his remarks, Kendall explored the nature of the F-35,
which has overcome many issues since its first flight in 2006, by discussing
the 1981 nonfiction book he's reading, author
Tracy Kidder's “The Soul of a New Machine.”
The Pulitzer Prize- and American Book Award-winning story is
an account of the efforts of a team of researchers at now-defunct Data General,
one of the first late-1960s microcomputer firms, to create a new 32-bit
superminicomputer.
"At the time, Data General was in trouble,” Kendall
said. “A company called Digital Equipment Corp. had introduced something called
the VAX. They were cutting-edge in their day, and Data General had to respond
to this threat, so they launched a crash program to develop a new design."
Telling the story, Kendall explained the point in the book
he considers relevant today.
"The program manager, the chief designer for Data
General, realized the computer he was building was too complex to be understood
by a single individual," the undersecretary said. But the designer
realized that no single person could possibly grasp all the complexity involved
in the design they were creating, he added, and the designer had to trust many
others to design their parts successfully and bring the machine together.
"It's that complexity that led to a very successful
product, and they were successful at the time," Kendall said. "It's
that complexity that characterizes the product behind me," referring to a
gleaming new F-35.
During one of Kendall's first office calls several years ago
with then-Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, the undersecretary recalled,
"[Panetta] said, 'Frank, why can't we make more things like the [mine
resistant, ambush-protected vehicle]? Why is the F-35 taking so long and
costing so much?'
"My answer was one word," Kendall said.
"Complexity."
The undersecretary listed several of the factors that make
the F-35 so complex: "Millions of lines of code, an incredibly integrated
design that brings together stealth, a number of characteristics, very advanced
sensors, advanced radars, advanced [infrared] sensors, incredibly capable
electronic warfare capability, integration of weapons and integration across
the force of multiple aircraft and multiple sensors to work together as a
team."
All of that integrated technology is unprecedented, he said.
"You're talking about something that no one has ever done before, which
will put us all a decade or more ahead of anybody else out there. And [it will]
keep us ahead for some time to come as we continue to upgrade the F-35,"
he added.
Such complexity has led to the cost and the time it has
taken to design and build the F-35, Kendall said, but also to the capability it
represents. “That's why we're all still together,” he added. “That's why all
the communities I talked about have stayed with this aircraft."
As he ended his remarks, Kendall asked for a round of
applause for the engineers and production workers who made the F-35 possible.
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