Articles taken from Flight International Magazine.

1st November: Lockheed Martin eyes common architecture for F-35, F-22
Lockheed Martin is looking at revamping several of the F-22's most critical systems with hardware from the F-35.

The initiative would create a common architecture that links upgrades of the radar, electronic warfare suite and communications, navigation and identification (CNI) system to both aircraft.

3rd November: Lockheed's F-35 faces second restructuring this year
Facing a new round of cost overruns and schedule delays, the Lockheed Martin F-35 programme will finish the final two months of 2010 in much the same way as it opened the year.

One more year of development and an extra $5 billion may be added on top of previous extensions, according to the preliminary findings of a major F-35 review leaked by the Center for Defense Information (CDI), a well-connected think-tank.

12th November: F-35 cuts 'could slash US budget': report
The US government could save about $58 billion by slashing four major aerospace and defence accounts, a presidential commission advises in a draft proposal released on 10 November.

15th November: F-35B flies with Block 1.0 software
Lockheed Martin has flown an F-35 flight test aircraft with the third of five major blocks of software for the first time. The advance represents a key step, as the programme has struggled to deliver an estimated 11.6 million lines of code demanded by fusing the aircraft's advanced sensors and avionics.

22nd November: Latest deal for 31 F-35s shows slight price decline
Lockheed Martin has finalised a nearly $3.5 billion contract to deliver 31 more F-35s at a slightly lower price than last year.

The contract award, announced late on 19 November, is a key boost for Lockheed's F-35 production programme as top Department of Defense officials are scheduled to meet on 22 November to review possible new delays and cost overruns on the development side.
The $3.5 billion award is the third contract Lockheed has received as part of the fourth lot of low-rate initial production (LRIP-4), which will be delivered in fiscal year 2013.

22nd November: Fatigue cracks raise questions about key decision in F-35 redesign
Lockheed Martin has discovered fatigue cracks on an aluminium bulkhead inside a ground test aircraft for the short take-off and landing F-35B variant after 1,500h of durability testing.
25th November: F-35 production cost fall highlights pressures facing Lockheed
With the development phase of the Lockheed Martin F-35 under close scrutiny by US Department of Defense officials, a long-awaited contract award shows that production costs are falling, while the risks are shifting from the government to the contractor.

A $3.5 billion contract awarded on 19 November completes the orders of 30 F-35s from the USA and one from the UK in the fourth annual lot of low-rate initial production, or LRIP-4. Two other deals awarded earlier for LRIP-4 aircraft raise their total cost to $4.6 billion, or about $148 million each.

Afghan News Roundup of news you might have missed, compiled by Elayne Jude, Great North News Service

Kabul's Sex Workers Get Organised

Prostitutes in Afghanistan's capital have organised into a clandestine self-help network to halt the spread of disease, avoid detection by the state and flag abusive customers.

By Baker Spring

Providing for the defense of the United States is the federal government's most important responsibility, and it is predominantly a federal responsibility that in most areas should not be delegated to lower echelons of government or to the private sector. Yet these truths seem to be missing from the Obama Administration's fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget request.

The Administration has requested a $702.8 billion defense budget for FY 2012, which is at least $36.5 billion below the estimated FY 2011 budget—a reduction of roughly 5 percent in nominal dollars or 6.4 percent in real (inflation-adjusted) dollars.

The Administration's five-year budget projection makes the misplaced priorities even more evident. In real dollars, the FY 2016 defense budget will be 13 percent below the estimated FY 2011 budget. This contrasts with a 17 percent increase in Medicare and a 16 percent increase in Social Security over the same period in real dollars. (See Chart 1.)



This pattern of fiscal restraint on core defense programs, but fiscal profligacy on entitlement (or mandatory) spending has been evident since the federal government took a "peace dividend" after the fall of the Soviet Union. Yet in today's budget debates against the backdrop of ballooning national debt and deficits and the tight economy, people too often point to defense spending as the culprit. It is not, as Secretary Robert Gates has explained:

Defense is not like other discretionary spending. This is something we've got to do and that we have a responsibility to do. And so the two shouldn't be equated. They have not been equated in the past. I mean, that's why they call it non-defense discretionary spending and so on.

...I got it that we've got a $1.6 trillion deficit. But defense is not a significant part of that problem. If you took a 10 percent cut in defense, which would be catastrophic in terms of capabilities, that would be $50 billion on a $1.6 trillion deficit.

Yet too many Members of Congress are not listening. There are growing calls on both sides of the political aisle to cut defense across the board, just like other discretionary programs.