The F-35 Boosts Into the Social Media

Morning Coffee is a robust blend of links to news around the internet concerning the Naval Air Station Patuxent River economic community. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the Leader’s owners or staff.

Naval aviation takes the F-35 to YouTube. The message launched into the social media ether is about the effectiveness of the JSF as the Navy’s leading edge platform. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HN5AF3Wlh1g]

Boosterism to keep the JSF program going has reached new heights. Or new lows to hear it from an editorialist with Defense-Aeorospace.com who debunks Reuter’s strong assessment  of the program, based on South Korea’s potential buy of 40 F-35s from Lockheed Martin.  Twelve years into the JSF program and orders have dropped from Lockheed’s estimated 5,179 down to about 3,000 aircraft. The article lists initial orders and subsequent reductions country-by-country.

Despite collegiate reports of sufficient STEM graduates, defense executives see no increase in the pool of engineers they seek, reports National Defense Magazine. The shortage exacerbates some of reasons: defense has lost its cutting edge cache and baby boomers with historic knowledge are retiring. Industry executives are increasing direct support of science, technology, engineering and math  education trying to staunch the growing shortage of engineers working on national defense.

Not helping with that cutting-edge cache issue, military compensation must be reduced for the Pentagon to succeed with its mission, opined The New York Times on Sunday. “[U]nrestrained compensation costs will edge out funds for training, readiness and weapons,” reads the editorial. The article acknowledges the difficulties compensation cuts of the necessary size face but also identifies widespread insistence among conservative think tanks and Pentagon officials of the economic necessity. A Congressional study found enlisted personnel’s wages plus food and housing allowances exceed the compensation of 90 percent of civilian counterparts.

NASA has opened an engineering challenge to student teams worldwide.  To build a Human Exploration Rover Challenge is a more complex follow-on to the successful 20-year NASA Great Moonbuggy Race. Registration closes Jan. 10, 2014 for international teams and Feb. 7 for U.S. teams, reports SpaceWar.com. For more information about the NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge, visit:
www.nasa.gov/roverchallenge.

NAS:Patuxent River adds to a full year commemorating the 35th anniversary of the Hornet 10 am, Dec. 9 presenting at the air station. Rear Adm. Donald Gaddis, Program Executive Officer for Tactical Aircraft (PEO(T)) and Capt. Frank Morley, PMA-265 program manager as well as several Super Hornet and Growler test pilots. The commemorative year is enhanced with podcasts, videos, photos and articles posted at www.navair.navy.mil/hornet.

Rhetoric and traffic are heating up in the airspace above the East China Sea as implied threats and brinksmanship escalates in the region at China’s declaration last week of a unilateral expansion of its “air defense identification zone,” The Washington Post reported.  The Hill reports, the US government has advised airlines to steer clear of the zone, even while refusing to acknowledge China’s right to declare the ADIZ.

To maintain the public record, agencies struggle to craft archiving strategies for social media  even as the platform evolves, reports FCW.

The Motley Fool sneaks in a peak at the individual submarine units at the heart of Black Friday’s Special Operations contract announcement, a $10 million lease award to Lockheed Martin.