Journey into the heart of procurement PR

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Selling the simulation at Lockheed Martin

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Selling the simulation at Lockheed Martin

Contents Earlier this month, Lockheed Martin invited journalists to Texas and Florida to view production and testing of the new F-35 Lightning II fighter jet, one of the options the government is considering to replace the RCAF’s old fleet of CF-18s. Our Colin Horgan went along.

This is what it was like.

Part One: What they want you to think you know Part Two: What they don’t want you to think you know Part Three: What you know

Stories and photos by Colin Horgan.

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Part one: What they want you to think you know We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less meaning.”

—Jean Baudrillard, ‘Simulacra and Simulation’ There is one thing Lockheed Martin would like you to know about their F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter jet: Everything is great. This is why they’ve invited you and other journalists to tour their factory in Fort Worth, Texas and an air force base in Florida over two days in mid-May. They want to show you the production line, introduce you to the pilots, and let you talk to the technicians, and see and feel for yourself what confidence in a jet fighter program is like. There can be no doubt left in your mind. They want to make sure you know it.

So you go, and you look and you listen. And then you decide.

One of the first things you see is a video – a mash-up of various U.S. politicians and military officials talking about their confidence and commitment to the plane. At some early hour of the morning in a conference room somewhere in the

company’s sprawling complex in Forth Worth, Texas, you’ll yawn through the clip, embedded into a positive Power Point overview of where the development program is at the moment.

Later, from the comfort of one of the eight seats of one of the four elongated, electric golf carts that Lockheed uses to drive you and the rest of the visiting journalists up and down its one-mileand-twenty-five-foot long production floor, you’ll see where the planes are made. You’ll see wings and tail fins and landing gear all in various stages of production, and you’ll touch a piece of the composite material the fighter jets are made of. And you’ll see all the factory workers on their lunch break, eating in one of the plant’s various cafeterias. You’ll glide by the men and women with their Cokes and Dr. Peppers and fries, with the tour guide’s voice crackling through the little speakers at your feet. He’s up ahead, in the first cart, talking into a headset. Non-stop. You’ll give the workers a small wave because the whole thing feels so awkward. A couple will wave back. The rest just stare at you.

Just before lunch, you’ll talk to Billy Flynn, the first Canadian to fly the F-35 and who was trained in the RCAF by nowConservative MP, Laurie Hawn.

Billy notes a few things that you should apparently be remembering, including the fact that stealthy airplanes are the future.

One reporter from a specialty

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defence publication asks that Billy fill you all in on “what additional capabilities are we getting with the F-35, stealth aside?”

Billy is only too happy to answer.

He talks about the plane’s Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities, the integrated data system that gives the pilot access to real-time battlefield information with 360-degree coverage.

land and out. You needed that whole package to do it.

is normal for all jets. You learn about how the plane will be able to track any slight damages to And if you missed any compothe stealth skin and therefore nent, guys were potentially not mitigate against unexpected or coming home.” That’s because, he unscheduled maintenance issues. continues, before stuff like the F-35, “everybody on the ground That first afternoon, you sit can see you coming and going.” in an F-35 simulator and learn how to pinpoint air and ground Then he reminds you of anoth- targets and destroy them from er stealth plane. immense distances, seeing a tiny plume of smoke descend toward the Earth as evidence that your missiles worked.

“‘We never had that capability in my experience wearing the uniform — a platform that actually can sense, horizon to horizon, and pass that information on to someone. We now have that in a tactical fighter. I think, to me, that’s just a massive step forward,’ Flynn says.”

“We never had that capability in my experience wearing the uniform — a platform that actually can sense, horizon to horizon, and pass that information on to someone. We now have that in a tactical fighter. I think, to me, that’s just a massive step forward,” Flynn says. He also mentions the F-35’s jamming capabilities.

And he talks about the stealth.

In prior conflicts, he says, “You needed 70 aircraft to punch ahead, punch a hole through the defences, to shoot down everyone that’s looking at you, to safely get some bomb-droppers into bad guy

“I can tell you, when I was in Kosovo, the B2s came and went whenever they wanted,” he says.

The Lockheed team likes you to know a lot of facts. They tell you all about the plane’s internal fuel tanks and that even when those are fully loaded, the thing can do Mach 1.6 or fly across the Arctic. They mention that software development will wrap up in probably 2016, and that cold weather testing in a climate controlled chamber will happen before the Marine Corps takes possession of its jets in mid-tolate 2015, and that this method

You push the thrust and maneuver the joystick to bank around and buzz a computer-generated aircraft carrier. This, they say, is what it might be like to fly an F-35. This is what it’s like to be stealth. This is what it’s like to kill enemies. This is what it’s like to win a war. You feel no different as you climb out of the simulator seat. You feel normal.

A day later, at Eglin Air Force Base in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, you’ll see that the F-35 isn’t just a “paper airplane,” as the Lockheed executives keep telling you people are saying, even though you’re not sure if you’ve ever heard anyone use the term. You’ll wake up even earlier that morning and find yourself a short time later standing about 20 feet from an F-35 as it starts its engines.

You’re wearing two kinds of ear protection. The single F-135 Pratt and Whitney jet engine pumps out a maximum thrust of

Selling the simulation at Lockheed Martin

about 43,000 pounds-force — or over 190 kN — though later a Pratt representative will suggest they’ve pushed it past even that.

Up close, you quickly experience just how incredibly loud it is. You’ll watch four real live F-35 jets taxi over to the runway.

You’ll follow at a distance only so far as is allowed, but no further than a red line painted on the concrete.

If you step over that red line, the US Air Force public relations representatives tell you all, someone will quickly put a gun to your head. You look around and wonder why there isn’t anyone for kilometers that might be capable of such a thing, until you realize the private security guards flanking your group have handguns in the front pockets of their double-pleated khakis. You feel less normal.

Then, as you stand there with your ear protection on and your camera pointed off into the distance, the planes take off and disappear into the grey morning sky, bound probably for training exercises over the Gulf of Mexico.

Your group is herded back to the administrative building for another look at one of the new helmets F-35 pilots will get to wear. You already saw one the day before, when Billy Flynn wanted to explain to everyone what the difference was between how things used before and after this new helmet’s Electro Optical

Distributed Aperture System was invented. Pilots used to have to swivel their heads around and were limited to what they could see out their cockpit bubble.

Now, however, you hear about how this new helmet’s DAS gives

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“Some of the things that they’ve commented on that are negative about the [helmet-mounted display], we honestly don’t see those because we don’t operate in those flight regimes where the test sites have noticed any of those issues.

“You push the thrust and maneuver the joystick to bank around and buzz a computer-generated aircraft carrier.

This, they say, is what it might be like to fly an F-35. This is what it’s like to be stealth. This is what it’s like to kill enemies.

This is what it’s like to win a war. You feel no different as you climb out of the simulator seat. You feel normal.” the pilot a 360-degree picture of the exterior of the plane, thanks to cameras mounted around the fuselage. If the pilot looks around, the corresponding camera will show him what it sees.

To the pilot, it’s as if the plane doesn’t exist. It is a marvel of technology and design, they all say.

Major Jay Spohn, an instructor pilot who’s part of the Florida Air National Guard, tells you that within the parameters the Eglin pilots are permitted to fly, they haven’t noticed any serious issues with the helmet display, as others have reported.

Honestly, I can’t comment on that stuff either pro or con because I have not been in those flight regimes that the test locations have taken the aircraft to.”

A little while later, you’re back outside, staring into the skies as four F-35s zoom around overhead in formation. Two of the jets feign a landing, only to pull up at the last moment and scream off into the sky again.

All of this for $85 million a pop by the time Canada buys. It all looks very impressive. You might even start to think that everything is great.

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Part two: What they don’t want you to think you know At one point, just after lunchtime on day one of the two-day media visit, we were sitting around a conference table somewhere within the sprawling Lockheed corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, with a moment to ask some more questions of the Lockheed executives and test pilots. I had just finished eating three fajitas.

“What if the NDP forms government in 2015?” I asked Keith Knotts, the face of Lockheed’s international development for Canada.

There were guffaws all around immediately, including from a couple of the defence industry reporters, one of whom stated flatly that he would be moving out of the country should such a thing occur.

Keelan Green, a senior associate with public relations firm Thornley Fallis, and a spokesman for Lockheed Martin Canada in Ottawa (also the man responsible for organizing the administrative details for getting this batch of reporters down to Texas), spoke up from his spot against the wall at the back of the room.

“I don’t think we’re going to comment on potential things,” he said.

So, no comment, then?

“What’s going to happen if they become the government? I have no idea,” Knotts said a moment later.

There was more laughter from

around the room. One journalist started to ask a new question.

Just then, another reporter said she wanted an answer, too. I repeated my first question, noting the costing reviews from the Parliamentary Budget Office, the audit from KPMG, the NDP’s vocal opposition to how the program was going to that point, and the chance that in 2015 — the same year Canada would likely place an order for the F-35 should it decide to buy it — they, as the official Opposition, stand a chance at forming government.

“’Independent of who’s in the government, y’know, we believe that if Canada decides they need to replace their CF-18s and maintain a fighter capability, that the F-35 is the best solution,’ Knotts said.”

“Independent of who’s in the government, y’know, we believe that if Canada decides they need to replace their CF-18s and maintain a fighter capability, that the

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F-35 is the best solution,” Knotts said. “We’ve delivered information to [the NDP], the U.S. government has delivered information about the status of the program — the costing of it — and I think in fact the KPMG report, actually, for lifecycle cost validated exactly what was the submittal back in 2010.”

the Joint Strike Fighter program as the new status quo. Each time a Lockheed representative spoke, the conversation quickly turned to the F-35, no matter where you’d started it. Discussions between the reps within earshot of journalists were, equally, often about the F-35 and the wonders thereof, with each individual reinforcing

“The idea is not just to make everyone listen, but to prime for repetition — to turn every observer into an evangelical for the Church Of F-35, merely a conduit through which the product sells itself.”

It’s just rare that you have to face it for two straight days.

Really, the whole experience was no different than watching the Shopping Channel selling the same product for 48 hours, receiving so much information at every possible moment that your senses are so overwhelmed, you’re finally incapable of deciding what bits are true, what might be useful to you right now, what might be useful in the future, and how much is probably just complete and utter bullshit.

In other words, it’s all a carefully constructed facade. But it is a delicate one. …

There was little mention of how When there was a question the other’s statements in some the program is wildly over budget. about the U.S. government’s plans kind of weird manufactured qua- Nobody talked about how the U.S. for sequestration, we were encour- si-conversation between particiGovernment Accountability Office aged to reference the video prespants whose sole purpose appears recently stated that “once fielded, entation at the beginning of the is to set the other up to deliver the projected cost of sustaining day with all the politicians and talking points. The idea is not the F-35 fleet have been deemed military types talking about how just to make everyone listen, but unaffordable by [Department of great the F-35 program will be as to prime for repetition — to turn Defense] officials.” When asked proof of U.S. and British support. every observer into an evangelical about annual sustainment costs This thing’s not going anywhere, for the Church Of F-35, merely a for Canada, Dave Scott, the direcLockheed’s people told us before conduit through which the prodtor of Lockheed’s F-35 internamoving on, their narrative duly uct sells itself. tional development, simply stated reinforced. It’s that narrative that it’s different for each country, that’s most important, after all.

It’s not an unfamiliar techdepending on a number of factor.

There is a product to sell. And nique. You’d probably face the That’s likely quite true but also this trip was a sales job, pure and same rhetorical mechanisms at not a great answer when you’re simple. any run-of-the-mill sales seminar trying to account for the long term.

Each day was stuffed with a for anything from a car to a time- It was also difficult to believe constant, relentless barrage of share, complete with the same Scott wasn’t up to speed on what numbers, words, terminology, kind of generalities, assumptions, Canadian officials have publicly charts, and data from early morn- repetitions, and immense timeestimated for at least over a year. ing right into the evening, all con- frames that skew your ability to Back on May 3 2012, Dan Ross, textualized in a generally favour- contextualize exactly what kind of Assistant Deputy Minister for Maable light, all working to establish money is at stake in the long run. teriel at National Defence, told a

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Commons committee that, “knowing that we’d spent about $200 million annually for the F-18,” he’d estimated “$250-$300 million,” as the operating cost for the F-35.

No one seemed to know the specific figure for what the stateof-the-art helmet costs. It’s a price that’s built in with the plane — part of that apparent $85-million acquisition cost, but nobody would say what it cost to produce or replace. At Eglin, SSgt Lemuel Velazquez, who works on maintaining the helmets, told reporters that at the moment, the supply chain is designed to operate in such a way that if damaged, a new helmet part will arrive within 24 hours of being reordered, should it be necessary.

However, at the moment it often

takes longer. That’s important, because if the helmet (which is custom-fitted to each pilot’s head) is broken, that pilot is grounded until it’s fixed, according to Velazquez.

A recent Pentagon report from J. Michael Gilmore, the Director of Operational Testing and Evaluation, concluded the helmet-mounted display “present frequent problems” for test pilots. They complained of a “misalignment of the virtual horizon display with the actual horizon, inoperative or flickering displays, and focal problems — where the pilot would have either blurry or ‘double vision’ in the display.” According to the report, “pilots also mentioned problems with stability, jitter, latency, and brightness

of the presentation in the helmet display.” Flynn claimed the lag and jitter has been fixed. “The helmet works exactly like we wanted,” he said the first day.

When another reporter and I asked Velazquez follow-up questions about the reports of flickering, one defence industry journalist from an aviation magazine actually stepped in to help him out, reminding us that the thing to remember was that the helmet was still in development. Twice.

Some, it seemed, are more easily converted than others.

There was talk of production delays, but they were downplayed.

Lockheed pointed to testing figures, which are looking better.

The plane is indeed being tested a lot and, according to the GAO,

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met “most of key management and development testing objectives for the year.” But no one mentioned that while the F-35 flight test program exceeded the planned number of flights (18), that it “fell short of its own plan in terms of test points flown by about 3 percent,” which the GAO figured was a sign “that the flights flown were not as productive as expected.”

did, that over time, “testing has discovered bulkhead and rib cracks on the aircraft.”

There was a lot of talk about stealth and low-observability, but never any about the F-117 Nighthawk, the first American stealth plane that the Yugoslavs managed to shoot down in 1999 with the help of outdated Russian radar systems. There was a lot of

...one day, stealth might have to fight stealth. I found it strange, then, that when I asked a Lockheed simulator tech whether that computer program had ever been geared to train users how to fight other F-35s, the answer was no.

There was talk of how many planes the U.S. government has budgeted to purchase in fiscal year 2013 (29) and 2014 (29), but there was none about the fact that the GAO noted the F-35 program failed to deliver all of the 40 planes it was expected to in 2012.

Or that the software failed to have a “critical design review as planned in 2012.” Nor did anyone talk about how the program failed “to receive approval from the Defense Contract Management Agency of the contractor’s plan for correcting deficiencies in its system for tracking and reporting cost and schedule progress.”

Nobody mentioned, as the GAO

talk at various points about the last stealth jet fighter, the F-22 Raptor, but none about how it still hasn’t seen a single combat mission. Ever.

concept of the Joint Strike Fighter was that only the U.S. and its allies would be using the planes.

Quite the simulator. …

In Florida, our group was joined at the base by a duo of Dutch journalists who came to Fort Walton Beach in the hopes of seeing some F-35s in action.

(One of them would, somewhat strangely, later end up the subject of a local news report in Vermont that featured him with a kind of wide-eyed wonder that this tall foreigner has decided to drop in to look at their jets.) The Netherlands is a partner nation in the Joint Strike Fighter program, but recently the nation’s original decision to pick up 85 of the planes was thrown into question. Back in March, reports emerged from the Netherlands that it might cut its order by as few as 17 or possibly as many as 33 planes.

Why? A new government.

From Reuters: At more than one point, there was the suggestion that if anyone “Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s doubted the importance of stealth, Liberal Party, re-elected in one had to only look at what September, has always been other global powers like China in favour of the F-35, but his are developing. That is, perhaps new coalition partner, Labour, one day, stealth might have to called in July for ending Dutch fight stealth. I found it strange, participation in the project. The then, that when I asked a Lockplane’s rivals are lobbying hard heed simulator tech whether that for cancellation, according to computer program had ever been Dutch media reports.” geared to train users how to fight other F-35s, the answer was no.

The Dutch reporter duo had It was possible, he said, but the some questions about that. As

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it turns out, the test pilot the Netherlands sent to Eglin is still hanging around the base, but the plane he was due to start flying is still just sitting on the ground.

He is a man stuck in procurement limbo. Lockheed confirmed that any cut back in orders — particularly to the F-35A variant (the one Canada might buy) — would cause a ripple effect, and could increase the cost of all the other planes everyone else purchases.

“There are commonalities between the airplanes — they’re built down the same production line — but the real key is the CTOL [F-35A] model for the quantities as well as for Canada because it’s the variant you’re looking at buying,” Scott said the first morning. He duly followed

that up with a positive.

“Achieving the production volume is based on the U.S. Air Force, and their commitment and their plans which have remained very solid,” he said.

There is a now internet-famous blooper from a 1980s shopping network where a salesman mounts a folding ladder to show how strong it is even when placed in unorthodox positions. As he climbs on, the ladder crumples beneath him, bending backwards at a critical joint. In a heap on the floor, he continues the sales pitch as if nothing has happened, even suggesting the collapse had been somewhat anticipated. Even under duress, he keeps the simulation going.

If the Netherlands — or any other partner nation — cuts back its order, Canada and everyone else would pay more. This is why if you’re Lockheed, the possibility that such a thing might occur, or to acknowledge that a government might come into power and make such a decision is difficult. Just like it’s difficult to discuss the negative U.S. federal reports on the development of the plane. All of it simply interrupts the flow of the sales pitch, which is really the point. Even when faced with an instance where that exact scenario has occurred — when the metaphorical ladder has folded beneath them — it’s just best that Lockheed not let on that it’s anything to think about. If it doesn’t fit the reality being constructed, it’s not really worth mentioning.

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Part three: What you know Lockheed Martin appears to be worried. This visit (full disclosure: Lockheed provided my ground transportation in Texas and Florida, as well as meals during the trip. iPolitics covered my air transportation and lodging throughout.) was only one of a few the company has been hosting for international media. Just a week prior, British journalists were reporting back from a visit to Patuxent River Naval Base, having witnessed the first British pilot land the first British test jet. Lockheed is also visiting a handful of Canadian cities in the coming weeks with its simulator to show off the wow-factor of how cool the planes might be, and to convince more Canadians the whole thing is really happening.

Or could happen.

Again, this is where reality takes over. After a scathing spring auditor general’s report on the F-35 procurement in 2012, the government reversed course slightly, setting up the National Fighter Procurement Secretariat within Public Works to execute a seven-point plan to establish which fighter jet might be best suited to replace Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18s, which will probably be retired around 2020.

After almost two years of being the only name on the government’s lips when it came to fighter jets, Lockheed now finds that space crowded with words like “Boeing F-18 Super Hornet” or “Saab Gripen.” There are no more thumbs-up photo ops with cabinet ministers sitting in the cockpit of a model F-35, and no more of the prime minister telling the House

of Commons that not only are a number of other nations buying the F-35, but “so are we, because our air force is going to have the best equipment in the world to do its job.” Those days are gone for now. That kind of advertising no longer comes for free.

This is the problem for Lockheed: in the span of just under three years, they’ve gone from trying to sell us a fighter jet to trying to buy our benefit of the doubt.

Unfortunately for them, thanks

There are no more thumbs-up photo ops with cabinet ministers sitting in the cockpit of a model F-35, and no more of the prime minister telling the House that not only are a number of other nations buying the F-35, but ‘so are we, because our air force is going to have the best equipment in the world to do its job.’

Those days are gone for now.

What had I actually just seen? Most of what was going through my mind was a construct, a simulation my brain built with the help of a slick sales pitch, a two-day wall of PR blather and, for good measure, a turn in an actual simulator. to the Conservatives, the latter is running in increasingly short supply around here, and Lockheed knows better than anyone that shorter supply means a higher price. But after making the critical mistake of apparently believing a group of politicians could tell the F-35 story without politics getting in the way, what other options are there for the company?

Admittedly, on paper, the F-35 looks to be a potentially amazing fighter jet. Standing on a Florida military tarmac watching a couple of real live ones scream off into the distance, knowing what they might one day be capable of doing, it was easy to see how everyone could be convinced that this is exactly what we need. The mind builds it all up — the helmet, the stealth and the Mach speeds.

The whole package becomes an unequaled piece of military equipment. But let’s not get confused.

What had I actually just seen?

Most of what was going through my mind was a construct, a simulation my brain built with the help of a slick sales pitch, a few personal testimonials, a two-day wall of PR blather and, for good measure, a turn in an actual simulator.

The truth is, I still don’t know about most of it. Will the stealth actually work? Or the helmet?

Will each plane only cost $85 million? Can it operate in the Arctic?

Will it be the right jet for Canada?

I’m not sure. Perhaps one day we’ll find out. What I do know now for sure is this: I know the F-35, an airplane, is capable of flight.

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