03/16/15 – Mandy Smithberger – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show.
On with the interviews today.
First up is Mandy Smithberger.
She is the director of the CDI Strauss Military Reform Project at POGO, the Project on Government Oversight.
That's pogo.org.
Welcome to the show.
Mandy, how are you doing?
Pretty good.
Thank you so much for having me.
Well, I really appreciate you joining us on the show today.
And I don't know if it's your hilarious deadpan writing style or if it's just the facts that have me laughing my head off while I was reading this thing.
Not ready for prime time.
The F-35 is not ready for IOC and won't be any time soon.
Oh, there's my first question.
What's IOC?
So that's Initial Operational Capability, so the idea would be ready for combat.
Right.
And well, does initial imply it should still keep getting better after that?
It will be.
And this is just good enough?
This is just starting to be ready for combat and that, yes, more improvements are on the way.
Not quite ready for full operational.
Right.
IOC is the minimum threshold for good enough.
Right.
Right.
Okay.
Good.
And it's not ready for that.
Great.
Now, so it's funny because I've read about a lot of different problems with this thing that aren't even mentioned in here, but, you know, the machine gun and the camera for sighting ground targets and all these different things, the bombs don't fit in the bomb bays and they can only hold a couple anyway and all kinds of different problems that aren't even in here.
And yet it may take the whole interview to go through all of the different problems that you do cover in here and all of them being of the highest importance.
So I guess, could you start with the flawed software?
I think that's where you start in at least the introduction to the study here is the flawed software where the plane systems don't even talk to each other, right?
After how many years have they been designing this thing?
They've been designing it for several, many years now and, right, you still don't have the capability for these computer systems to really be able to talk to each other.
And something that, you know, to keep in mind with the F-35 in general is that you're really relying on these computers to be able to give you your situational awareness, to help you to know when you have problems with the equipment and just really for everything for combat.
And so, now if I remember right, they started drawing this thing back in the 1980s when the USSR still existed and they said, boy, the Soviet MiGs of the 21st century are going to be a real problem.
So we're going to have to get to work on this thing.
And so, how could it be that the, is it just that the code is all written by different programmers working on different systems, but nobody thought that they all needed to be working on one flowchart here to make sure that their programs talk to each other or what?
So some of the issues that occur is that as you keep on trying to correct problems in the code, that you don't have enough testing happening to see, okay, that change that we just made, does it actually impact all of the underlying code before that?
And then again, this is one of the problems that when you subcontract these systems, the way that we tend to do, that you do have all of these companies that aren't really talking to each other and making sure that they're going to have interoperable systems.
All right.
Well, and I guess there's nobody at the head of the canoe yelling row, huh?
There's just, it's kind of a free for all there with the organization?
Presumably, the head of the joint program office, Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan is supposed to be the person who's saying row and making sure that all of these efforts are being coordinated.
And so you're seeing that that oversight and management is not sufficient to correct these problems.
All right.
Now, so I want to get back to all the money and all the bookkeeping tricks and all of that stuff in a minute, but can we go down a little bit of a list of some of the physical problems that the jet has at this point?
And you can specify different versions of the plane have different problems if you need to as well.
Right.
So some of the problems that we're seeing is still that this helmet that the pilot is supposed to be able to use is having stability problems with the computer, that there are concerns about wing drop so that the plane would keep on spinning.
And additionally, there are concerns about the ability to be protected against lightning.
Wait, wait, wait.
Go back to the wing drop for a second.
What's that?
So wing drop is it's called uncommanded wing drop.
So it's when maneuvering hard at high speeds that you just keep on spinning out of control.
And this is a concern for all of the variants, but in particular, this is a problem for the Navy variant and is even worse.
And then I think you say in here that, well, first of all, their solution is they're going to add on some spoilers like, you know, a Honda.
That's going to fix it.
But then secondly, this is a problem, not when you're flying over some talibs, you know, dropping bombs at leisure.
This is a problem when you're actually having to defend yourself in any way from another jet and doing hard turns in a dogfight.
When you need that stability, when it really counts is right where you don't have.
Is that right?
Absolutely.
And it's most vulnerable when trying to maneuver out of the way of a missile.
Right.
I'm gone.
Uh-oh.
I guess you got me.
Okay.
And then, I'm sorry.
Where'd you...
Oh, lightning after the wing drop.
You mentioned flying in the rain, right?
Right.
Something, again, that you don't really want to have to be worrying about.
But there is a system, it's called OBIGS, that is supposed to make sure that you remove enough oxygen from the tank so that you don't have a risk of fire.
But that system, even after several redesigns, isn't working.
And so, there are limitations so that the plane can't fly within 25 miles of thunderstorms.
And that's particularly a problem because these planes are being trained, or they're training with these planes at Eglin Air Force Base, which is in southern Florida and has some of the most lightning strikes that we have in the country.
And then, I think you say here, you shoot this thing with a cap gun and it explodes.
Is that right?
Yeah.
It's really concerning when you look in a testing report and they warn you about cascading fire.
Well, and let's get back to the cap gun in a second, but you say here that it can't even dump fuel.
If it needs to dump fuel in an emergency, it'll blow itself up doing that.
Yeah, there will be risks of fire in dumping fuel, which is something that, again, you just need to be able to do as a fighter plane.
This is like the movie Airplane 3, I guess.
Yeah.
Leslie Nielsen, they'll have to dig him up to do the on-screen version of this thing.
Okay, but no, seriously though, if you shoot it at all, you cannot expect it to survive a hit from cannon fire or shrapnel of any kind?
Yeah, that is currently a major risk for the program.
And something that's really important to note with this is this was discovered through live fire testing.
And this is something that Pentagon reformers really worked to be able to make sure that testing would include actually seeing how these weapon systems survive under live fire.
And as there are discussions as to whether testing programs are slowing down the procurement process, it's important to remember that this kind of testing can discover significant safety vulnerabilities that we want to make sure that our pilots aren't going to have to be worrying about when they're in combat.
And then didn't I read something too about the rain that the so-called stealthy material that's not even stealthy anyway, you just got to change your frequency or your radar and there it is.
But anyway, they said that the chemical composites and all the high-tech so-called skin on the plane also is just vulnerable to water.
You can't get it, can't fly through a thick cloud even, I guess.
Right, and you have to be concerned as well with when you have the long cure times for those stealth skins as well, which kind of result in it being a hangar queen even more.
A hangar queen, that means you can't use it, it just sits there, gets worked on.
Like a potted plant.
I got it.
Yeah, that's, well, hey, safer in there for sure.
And now, but see, that's where the fraud comes in too that you mentioned here, where they just start changing the definitions of words and things like this so that they can try to deny how much time these things spend under maintenance as it is.
Right.
So some of the ways that they've been cooking those numbers is if a part fails, but they know that they're going to get a redesigned part for that later on, they don't count that as a part failure.
And even though they know that they need new tires on the planes, when those tires are, you know, fall apart, they score that as a no defect tire replacement.
It just kind of challenges any kind of logic that you can think about.
Actually, speaking of which, you even say that they're having to change the tires, redesign the tires for the thing right now, is one of the things on the block.
They haven't figured out the tires for it yet, in 2015.
Correct.
All right.
I'm sorry.
Hang on right there, everybody.
We'll be right back with Mandy Smithberger, she's from POGO, the Project on Government Oversight.
You've got to go read this thing.
I'm not ready for prime time about the F-35, Lockheed's F-35.
Hey, I'm Scott Horton here.
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All right, you guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
It's my show, Scott Horton Show.
I'm talking with Mandy Smithberger from pogo.org.
That's the Project on Government Oversight.
The article, the study is not ready for prime time.
And there's a brand new thing from the Government Accountability Office, I think, as well, and a couple of new reports out.
The Fiscal Times, Yahoo News have some stories about this as well.
Well, it's been a big story for quite a while, what a piece of junk the F-35 is and how expensive it is.
But now, so before we get to that, back to that, Mandy, let me ask you this.
Are there any advantages to the F-35 over the F-15 that you could really give them credit for that make this necessary by any stretch of the imagination?
I think there are some capabilities that will be to our advantage when it comes to certain kinds of jamming capabilities.
But what's really concerning is just how expensive this platform is to use and whether it's really practical and ready for combat.
Well, and jamming, I mean, you can put whatever new jammer you got in the nose of an F-15, right?
Right.
And we already got F-15s, right?
We do.
How many, by the way?
Do you have any idea?
You know, I don't know that off the top of my head, but it's important also to keep in mind that this system is part of why the Air Force is trying to retire the A-10 as well, which provides essential close air support.
Right.
Tell them a little bit more about that, because that's a really important story there, I think.
We've covered it before on the show, but this is a fight that's continuing right now in the Congress, et cetera.
Right.
This is an ongoing fight.
So for the second year in a row, the Air Force has proposed retiring the A-10, saying that they need to be able to take the maintainers from the A-10 and, you know, bring them over to the F-35.
But the problem is, is that the F-35 isn't going to be able to accomplish its mission until 2021 or 2022 at the soonest.
And so instead, you're going to have bombers and F-18s trying to cover this mission, but it's just not as effective as a platform, and there's a higher risk of fratricide and civilian casualties by using those platforms, rather than the A-10 that we know works and is effective.
Yeah.
And the A-10 pilots can see what they're killing, and the F-35 or even F-18 pilots, et cetera, they have to rely on their computers to guess right, they hope, and cross their fingers and hope things go well when they drop their bombs from much higher up.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And at much higher speed.
And of course, you know, it seems like the theory probably, you know, in the Lockheed promotional videos is like, one day we're going to have to meet China out in the Pacific Ocean or something like this.
But in truth, and I'm not advocating this, but I'm saying for argument's sake, in truth, our wars are against tribal natives in lands that we're conquering, and they can't possibly shoot back, you know, against any of these planes.
And so you could really, you know, you could fight the Afghan war with Cessnas or whatever, right?
Certainly you don't need these highest big ticket so-called super jets that don't even perform what they're supposed to do.
But even if you took their performance for granted, they're so overqualified for the job that they're ineffective at it.
Right.
And again, look at how often we're using the A-10 in our current wars and how the F-22 didn't make an appearance until our airstrikes in Syria.
And now, and by the way, how's the F-22 doing these days?
So the F-22 suffered a similar problem to what we're seeing with the F-35, where a lot of capabilities were deferred until later blocks so as to not be considered cost for the acquisition program.
And we have a $7 billion upgrade package that we have.
It's called a quote-unquote modernization package, specifically $11.3 billion added on to make sure that the F-22 is capable of everything we need it to be.
And is it still the case that they're not making any new ones?
Correct.
They are not making any new ones.
Well, that's good at least.
And now I saw in your bio here at POGO too that you did some work on the Littoral Combat Ship.
Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Oh, sure.
So the Littoral Combat Ship is a Navy program that's supposed to be kind of a plug and play.
And again, kind of similar to the Joint Strike Fighter, it's supposed to be able to do a lot of missions.
And what we've really found with the LCS is that because they have had so much overlap between production and testing, that the LCS isn't able to yet perform the missions that we need it to, that it's expensive, that there have been manufacturing problems that have happened with the program.
And so Secretary Hagel ordered a review of the program after the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation pointed out, hey, the LCS is not going to be combat survivable.
Meaning, again, you shoot it at all and it's done?
Correct.
And yeah, it's almost like it's not really the Navy or the Air Force commanders actually interested having any say in the design of these things at all.
It's simply just, well, what costs the most and what will need the most improvements over time?
Let's make it as shoddy as we can.
So we always have to fix it.
I even read, I'm not saying I endorse this, but just for irony's sake, I read a comment that seemed very informed on an article about the F-35 once saying all of this negative stuff about the F-35 is a Lockheed propaganda campaign against their own fighter because they want to start all over again because that's where the money's really at.
And so you can't even trust the critics because it's all a plot to get us for even more.
And it just goes to show whether that's true or not, obviously, but it just goes to show that it's kind of pretty widely accepted that the real purpose of the F-35 is to make money off of the taxpayer, not to produce a plane that does all the things they say it's going to do.
Right.
And it's important to keep in mind that as we talk about reforms to the pay and benefits for our troops, that you see that the profit margins for these major defense companies have not suffered at all as a result of sequestration.
Right.
All right.
Now, back to the F-35's problems here a bit.
What about the vertical takeoff?
Is that working well?
At least that technology has been mastered for decades by others, if not, you know, the Americans.
Right.
So that making sure that that works is still an ongoing concern.
And, yeah.
So in other words, they don't necessarily have that solved in that decades old technology there.
Is there any part of the F-35 that they are sure were?
I was going to say the cockpit.
But no, I remember the time that pilot got locked in the cockpit and it took a few hours to get him out of there with crowbars.
So I thought that was with the F-22.
Oh, that could have been the 22.
Maybe.
Oh, I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, I defer to you on that.
So the cockpit works in the hinge on the latch on the thing has not been a problem so far on the F-35?
As far as we know, that's not a problem.
But we do know that the nut plates that are used on the outside of the F-35 continue to be something that they don't.
They undercount how often they're having to replace those.
And now I'm sorry, because I just kind of made a wild assertion about the stealthiness.
But is that your understanding, too, that these things aren't really stealthy if you just point an old fashioned long wave radar at them?
That is my understanding as well.
And with the wing drop concerns that we were talking about before and putting those external spoilers on, that's going to be something else that compromises the signature of the plane.
Which is also why I can barely hold any bombs, because for the supposed stealthiness that it doesn't have in the first place.
Anyway, great work, Mandy.
Thank you so much for your time on the show.
Thank you so much.
All right.
So that's Mandy Smithberger.
She's at Pogo dot org.
The article is not the study.
Not ready for primetime.
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