Pentagon's Operational Test and Evaluation Office Determined To Minimize F-35 Successes

Dan Goure

F-35, United States

The definition of a critic is someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.

The definition of a critic is someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. This description could readily be applied to the Defense Operational Test and Evaluation office. DOT&E is often described, erroneously, as the Pentagon’s weapons testers.  In reality, they test nothing. Rather, they are the green eyeshade people, like the goblins at Gringott’s in the Harry Potter series, who assess the progress of various major defense programs in meeting test requirements largely determined by the program offices and the services. Unfortunately, DOT&E is unable to assess a program’s progress except against a list of performance capabilities and a test schedule. If a system isn’t meeting all its performance measures, really its test points, on schedule, it is deficient.

So, on the same day, two reports on the F-35 program were published in the trade press. One, by the defense expert, Colin Clark, in BreakingDefense, reported that the Joint Strike Fighter program was on track to achieve more successful tests this month than at virtually any time in the program’s recent history. According to Clark:

The F-35 program completed 25 weapons tests in a month, a marked surge from the previous high of three in November 2014.

The weapons tests used the aircraft’s latest software, the 3F version.

During the tests, some 30 weapons were dropped or fired, including the Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), AIM-120 Missile, the Small Diameter Bomb (SDB), AIM-9X missile, the F-35’s Joint Program Office said in a statement.