[Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: The key issue for Israel is that since there are
"black box" elements in the F-35 that Israel can only send overseas for
maintenance that it could find itself at a time that it is facing a security
challenge that requires intensive use of the F-35's that by "sheer
coincidence" there are supply delays for replacement "black boxes". Israel
has faced such "sheer coincidences" in the supply of critical parts in the
past...]
Could Connectivity Failure Ground F-35? It's Complicated
Lara Seligman, Defense News 4:01 a.m. EDT April 29, 2016
http://www.defensenews.com/story/defense/air-space/2016/04/27/could-connectivity-failure-ground-f-35-program-chief-gao-disagree/83589006/
WASHINGTON — The F-35 joint program office and a top government watchdog are
butting heads about a key question for the joint strike fighter: whether or
not the fifth-generation plane can fly if disconnected from a key logistics
system.
At the center of the debate is the Autonomics Logistics and Information
System (ALIS), an internal diagnostic system that tracks the health of each
part of each plane worldwide. ALIS is no stranger to controversy, with top
program officials identifying it as the last hurdle to declaring the US Air
Force jets operational on time this year.
Now a new report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identifies a
new ALIS-related concern - that if a single ALIS server were to go down,
whether from loss of electricity or sabotage, it could cripple the entire
F-35 fleet.
"Users are concerned that ALIS’ current design results in all F-35 data
produced across the fleet to be routed up to the Central Point of Entry and
then to the Autonomic Logistics Operating Unit, with no backup system or
redundancy,” according to the April GAO report. “If either of these fail, it
could take the entire F-35 fleet offline.”
But JPO chief Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan disagrees, telling reporters last
week after testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee there is
“absolutely” no truth to the claim that a failure to connect to ALIS could
ground the fleet.
The differing views of the program office and the GAO over ALIS reflect the
ongoing challenges of the F-35 program, and the fleet's logistics system in
particular. ALIS is by far the most integrated and complex fleet management
system in the US military today, but advances in technology often give rise
to new challenges - and without a clear precedent from previous systems,
both sides have legitimate arguments to fall back on.
ALIS, often called the backbone of the F-35 fleet, is an information
technology hub that is used to plan missions, track aircraft status, order
spare parts, and manage sustainment of the plane. By contrast, legacy
aircraft use several standalone systems to perform these daily functions.
ALIS is the first system of its kind to manage daily squadron operations,
track sustainment trends and protect sovereign information - all in one hub,
according to Dave Scott, vice president of training and logistics solution
business development for Lockheed Martin Mission Systems and Training.
All ALIS servers connect through encrypted land or satellite military
networks, rather than the “internet” we usually think of, Scott noted.
There is only one global ALIS server, called the Autonomic Logistics
Operating Unit (ALOU), where spare parts are ordered and reliability trends
are analyzed, Scott said. Each partner nation has its own server, called the
Central Point of Entry (CPE), which stores sovereign data and transmits that
information to the ALOU, Scott explained.
Individual squadrons operate locally with a server called the Standard
Operating Unit (SOU), which communicates with that nation’s CPE. Squadrons
can operate independently and store data for about 30 days without
connecting to the partner nation’s CPE, Scott said. Then, when a connection
is re-established, the SOU uploads the stored data to the CPE.
Differing Opinions
The fact that the F-35 enterprise has so few servers, and just one main hub
for the entire globe, is at the core of concerns ALIS could easily be taken
down.
The GAO report warned that ALIS has no backup system to ensure operations if
any of the servers — the ALOU, a nation's CPE or a squadron's SOU — were to
fail. Specifically, squadron leaders at two sites visited by the GAO
expressed concern that a loss of electricity, particularly during
deployments to remote locations, “could adversely affect fleet operations.”
The program office, for its part, says it is working to build in more
redundancy to the ALIS infrastructure. Program officials are also working to
procure two additional ALOUs for backup, and possibly relocating the US CPE
to another F-35 site, according to the GAO report.
But in the near-term, the Pentagon feels it can manage even if ALIS were to
go down. In fact, the overall F-35 fleet should be able to operate without
connection for up to 30 days with maintainers tracking the work off-line,
the Pentagon told GAO.
Losing connectivity to ALIS would be a pain, but hardly fatal, the JPO
contends. If jets are unable to use ALIS — a ground-based system that
provides sustainment and support, but not combat capabilities for the jet —
the F-35 is still a usable plane. In fact, the worst case scenario would be
that operators would have to track maintenance and manage daily squadron
operations manually, just as older jets do.
The best description of the problem came from Gen. Ellen Pawlikowski, chief
of Air Force Materiel Command, who compared ALIS to a laptop computer.
"You can turn on your laptop, you can use it, you can turn it off and never
be on the internet," Pawlikowski said April 28 during a Defense Writers
Group event. "But eventually there is stuff you want to send out by email,
eventually there are things you may want to put on your Google drive."
Yes, the F-35 can take off and land without connecting to ALIS; yes,
operators can make repairs without the logistics system, Pawlikowski said.
But at some point users need to feed that information up to the central ALIS
hub, she stressed.
"I don't need ALIS to put fuel in the plane and fly it, [I can] take a part
and replace it if I have the spares there," Pawlikowski said. "But somewhere
along the line I've got to tell ALIS that I did it so that the supply chain
will now know that that part has got to be replaced."
For his part, Bogdan believes there were "no surprises" in the GAO report.
"All of the issues mentioned are well known to the JPO, the U.S. Services,
International Partners and our Industry team," Bogdan said in a written
response to the GAO report April 14. "Overall, the F-35 program is executing
well across the entire spectrum of acquisition, to include development and
design, flight test, production, fielding and base stand-up, training,
sustainment of fielded aircraft, and building a global sustainment
enterprise."
Marine ALIS Users Satisfied
As debate rages in Washington over ALIS' viability, the operators who use
the system on a regular basis say they are satisfied so far.
A group of four Marine maintainers from Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in
South Carolina, the training hub for the F-35B for both the Corps and the
United Kingdom, told reporters during an April 14 visit that ALIS has made
their life easier.
The Marine Corps declared IOC with its F-35Bs last summer, and conducted its
first-ever expeditionary test in December. Marine Fighter Attack Squadron
121 deployed eight jets to Twentynine Palms, California, for Exercise Steel
Knight, where they practiced short takeoffs and vertical landings. The
Marines are preparing to deploy to Iwakuni, Japan, next year.
“I am more than satisfied with it and seeing it grow and seeing it change,"
a Marine said. "There’s not as much troubleshooting anymore so maintenance
times are definitely up.”
Overall, maintenance on the F-35 is “10 times easier” than on a Navy F-18,
said one maintainer. Despite initial challenges, another Marine stressed
that the system is constantly improving.
“Compared to how it was originally, it’s night and day,” said the Marine
when asked about updates to the system. “The transition has been good. Every
upgrade they do is easy to get ahold of, get your head around. It’s been
pretty consistent as far as maintainability.”
Aaron Mehta in Washington contributed reporting.
Email: lseligman@defensenews.com
Twitter: @laraseligman
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