F-35 Delayed Again

F-35 Delayed Again

By Greg Grant Thursday, February 18th, 2010 11:54 am
Posted in Air, Policy

Here’s a surprise, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the common operating platform for the Air Force, Navy, Marines, along with a host of foreign nations, has run headlong into further delays, stretching out the development time and adding costs to what is already the Pentagon’s most expensive program.

According to the most recent Pentagon plans, the military was to buy 2,456 F-35s for the Air Force, Navy and Marines at a cost of about $246 billion. The idea was to get some synergy going between the services on the new somewhat stealthy aircraft and achieve economies of scale to keep the price down on the aircraft. That last goal hasn’t worked out so well.

Since 2002, the F-35 program’s costs have risen by nearly $100 billion. Cost inflation is driven by delays in development, its now two years late, and some weight issues with the Marine’ vertical take off and landing version. According to the ever helpful analysts at the Congressional Research Service, best case scenario is the price tag for an F-35 now sits somewhere between $80 to $100 billion. Expect that price to go nowhere but up, especially now that another year’s delay has been added.


From Defense News’ John Reed:

“The Pentagon’s No. 2 official said this week that the jet’s development schedule would slip between 12 months and 13 months despite an aggressive restructuring of the program that was announced earlier this month.

“The development was originally projected to last an additional 30 months; we think with the additional test aircraft it will be closer to a delay of about 12 or 13 months, but I can’t give you the cost numbers,” The Australian newspaper quoted [Deputy Defense Secretary Bill] Lynn as saying during a speech at a shipyard in South Australia. He did not say if this would affect the delivery timeline for the JSF.

Under the Pentagon’s restructuring that was announced Feb. 1, Defense Secretary Robert Gates ordered an additional test jet and $2.8 billion be put into the extended F-35 SDD, withheld more than $600 million in performance fees from Lockheed, cut planes from F-35 acquisition coffers and fired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. David Heinz, the Pentagon’s F-35 program manager.

The Defense Department is requesting $10.7 billion in its 2011 budget to continue development on the F-35 and purchase 43 of the planes.”

Join the Conversation

Drake1 February 18th, 2010 at 5:45 pm

No wonder Air Forces all around the world are paring back their Air Wings. Fighter development, research, as well as procurement is prohibitive.

John King February 18th, 2010 at 7:16 pm

(1) Historically, development costs represent about 30 percent of total weapons system acquisition costs. The JSF (F-35) appears to be following the same cost path.

(2) Having seen this phemonema repeatedly inside the Pentagon for 25 years, the costs are severely understated to start with, so cost increases to get to the real cost are DoD’s form of low balling the cost estimate to make the sale to Congress. The idea that that military leaders cry later when quantities are cut to pay for more development and higher unit costs is disingenuous at best, and well-ingrained bad behavior (just like Wall Street bankers) at worst. But if the true costs were laid on the table at the start of a program, there would be a real shaking out about what programs we proceed with. Make work and goonie birds would fall off the table.

Weaponhead February 18th, 2010 at 4:36 pm

Sold as 3 aircraft for the price of 1. Now it is 3 aircraft for the price of 4.

Wait until they do more than scratch the surface of the flight test program. More delays and costs increases are on their way.

Tenn Slim February 19th, 2010 at 9:16 am

Opine
bt
J. King comments are correct.
bt
It is a Shell Game at best, in contract terms.
bt
One can only hope for the best here, as the end results will be no aircraft off the deck come the time when we really need them.
end
Semper FI
We Will Prevail.

Dave February 19th, 2010 at 4:23 pm

Good headline writing. What are the delays? What are the ‘VTOL’ weight issues? This could have been written months, maybe a year ago.

Byron Skinner February 20th, 2010 at 2:13 pm

Good Morning Drake 1,

I agree with you, the costs of manned aircraft have become prohibitive to all but the United States. I can add only one other factor and that is the gained experience of US air crews since 1990. They have been fly continuous combat missions and are the most experienced in the world.

About a year ago in one of the AF’s in house publications there was an interview with a Chinese PLAAF General. When asked how he though Chinese pilots would do against American pilots in any aircraft, he simply said that it would be suicide for ANY Chinese pilot to engage the Americans.

The Chinese General went on to note that nearly every American combat pilot has more actual combat flight time the his entire PLAAF or the PLAN.

This imbalance of cost and air crew experience has more or less grounded any opposition in the skies to the US. Our dominance in the air is the most complete of any militaries in History to include Rome of first Century AD and the British Navy of the 18th. and 19th. Centuries. Lets not make the same mistakes they made by teaching future enemies how to fight them.

In combat good enough is just that good enough. You won, stop fighting. Watch you future enemy but let him start the fight then pile on. If you are the winner why raise the technology bar, you are only showing your next enemy where he has to start.

ALLONS,
Byron Skinner

*required

NOTE: Comments are limited to 2500 characters and spaces.

By commenting on this topic you agree to the terms and conditions of our User Agreement