Australia to Host JSF Board Meeting

Avatar for Ken PoleBy Ken Pole | January 12, 2012

Estimated reading time 2 minutes, 46 seconds.

January 12, 2012 Senior Canadian officials should be heading Down Under in a few weeks for international talks they hope will clarify some of the outstanding issues and questions about Canada involvement in the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.
The occasion is a JSF Executive Steering Board (JESB) meeting tentatively scheduled for Sydney. March 14-15 is the target, but the Australian Defence Force JSF program manager, Air Vice-Marshal Kym Osley, told Canadian Skies that previous meetings have had to be rescheduled for one reason or another.
The JESB normally takes only one day, he said in an email. But the previous day is used for resolving issues at the working level and for senior members to conduct side-meetings with their international colleagues.
JESB sessions involve about 50 representatives, including senior officers from each country whom Osley said tend to be at least at the two-star level. The Department of National Defence in Ottawa told Canadian Skies that it was too early to say who would represent Canada at the upcoming JESB meeting, but U.S. representatives will include the top officers from the USAF Air Combat Command and the U.S. Navy NAVAIR Systems Command.
Osley said the U.S. flight-test community also is well represented and that Lockheed Martin is represented by Tom Burbage, the company vice-president in charge of the F-35 program. Other major participants include Pratt & Whitney and Northrop-Grumman.
Australia has funded procurement of the first 14 JSFs and associated equipment at a cost of up to $3.2 billion and the government will review funding for the next batch later this year.
 
Osley, whose call sign is Koz, brings considerable stick time to his current role as PM for the ADF New Air Combat Capability Program, which envisages the acquisition of up to 100 conventional variants of the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. He flew various models of the General Dynamics F-111 variable-sweep wing which the Royal Australian Air Force kept in service until the end of 2010. He also spent time on reconnaissance versions of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom while on exchange with the U.S. Air Force in Texas and on deployment in Europe.

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