This article first appeared in Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Pentagon belief in Joint Strike Fighter program cost estimates could be wearing thin, as delays to flight testing keep the program from proving whether it can break the mold of previous fighter development efforts and stay on budget.
The Defense Dept.‘s independent Joint Estimating Team (JET) has been told to update its projections for the F-35 program, and is expected to again conclude it will take longer and cost more to complete development than the joint program office (JPO) believes.
This is raising concerns that the Pentagon will eschew the JPO estimate and budget for development at the JET’s higher figure, forcing a major jump in projected program cost and potentially resulting in cuts to aircraft procurement numbers.
Lockheed Martin briefed JET officials on progress with JSF development on July 29 in Fort Worth, the day after it officially rolled out the first F-35C carrier variant for the U.S. Navy, the third and final version of the multi-service, multi-national fighter. The F-35C’s first flight has slipped into January next year.
The previous JET report estimated, based on legacy programs, that development would cost $5 billion more and take two years longer to complete than projected by the JPO in 2008. The estimators cited engineering destaffing, manufacturing span times, software development and flight-test productivity as drivers of expected cost and schedule growth.
Because of delays in flying test aircraft, JSF program executive officer Brig. Gen. David Heinz does not expect the updated assessment to change the JET estimate by much. “The JET has been tasked with updating its assessment in September,” he says. “Without significant flight testing I do not expect a major revision.“
Program officials hope to convince the independent estimators that destaffing, manufacturing and software are on track to deliver the JPO’s lower projections. “We do not believe they are right,” says Dan Crowley, Lockheed Martin F-35 program general manager. But lack of flight testing means a major part of the JET assumptions cannot yet be challenged. “It’s too early to prove them wrong,” he says.
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– Christian
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
All this mess for a fighter that except from the stealth factor, isn’t better than a F-16…
This thing better be much much better than the f-16 in cost to maintain and Maint. hrs per flight hr. cause it’s getting kind of crazy.
While I am sure it’s better in many ways that the f-16 (Stealth, carrier launch, VTOL, etc) it’s also way more expensive to build.
I still don’t know why we are working so hard on manned machines anyway. Autonomous grid networked suicide drones could solve every single air need we have today for far less money than what we spend on new Gen-5 aircraft and would require less maintenance, less fuel, and endanger no pilots. I suspect they could be built for about twice the money of the equivalent weapon (IE anti-air drone designed to launch itself into an aircraft would cost about 2x a mid-range air-to-air missile.) A simple system that runs a small prop and detachable wings would allow for long hang times, even RTB for fuel and/or tanker refuel, and would only need to drop the prop/motor and wings, fire it
The program managers of this program need to come clean instead of trying to obfuscate the fact that the program will cost significantly more than proposed, and will be delivered signifigantly later than planned.
I remember waiting for the F-22 Raptor since 1987 abouts,& we FINALLY only got less than 200(only 187 planes right?) of them. There is no way in hell that the Air Force will get more than 500 of the F-35 JSF,& I’m being optimistic. All of the “Squealers(the disinformation & propaganda mouth piece of “Animal Farm” fame)” saying “don’t worry,something better will come along” are either deluded “kool-aide” drinkers,or flat out liars just as Squealer lied to the other animals in the book “Animal Farm(how dare you think we’d send Boxer to the Knacker Yard to be slaughtered instead of the Veterinary Hospital?)” I think that I’ll start calling all the propaganda “apologists” on this board “Squealer.”
At an estimated $150 million per airplane cost that’s $13,000,000 more then an F-22 which owns the F-35 in a dog fight. This leaves little wonder why China will be the super power by 2040.
Why is no one held accountable? They can just increase cost over and over and over and noone is fired or made to anwser why?
Declare it TOP SECRET and we can charge more take home a bigger bonus right?
Re: Jim
If this were up to W Bush, he would probably give it a green light since it’s built in Texas and “for the good of the economy” – regardless how dangerously out-of-cost the JSF program is spiraling into.
EVERY $1 million per copy cost overrun can potentially translate into more than $1 billion total procurement cost overrun. It’s not difficult to see how extremely costly (not to mention unstoppable) the JSF program can become.
Anything is possible if you are willing to lower your expectations.
Why DO we keep A stealth aircraft even though its been proven they can be tracked and taken down?
Just wondering.
How about this consentrate on a good vtol strike fighter. Dont worry about stealth but EW. Or maybe EW drones to support the strike craft.
Then build a fighter version that can also have a VTOL version.
Have all 3 aircraft use similar engines components etc.
OOOO or we could build a REAL shore fire support ship.
Not a DD with 2 155mm guns…..oh yea when did a destroyer go from around 300 or so feet to 700?…….seriously wtf thats a crusier.
Jim – you are dead on correct, good bye F-35
Mark – Obama and the Dems WANT China to be the Superpower. Then they can concentrate on giving us free government cheese.
Just remember $1.75 billion for a few more F-22s was a disgraceful waste but in one day without debate the house passed $2 billion more for “cash for clunkers”. What a disgrace the left is.
Re: bobbymike
China is a fast rising power for quite some time, with or without Obama, with or without F22/F35.
If you want to point finger, point it to W. We missed the window of opportunity and the diplomatic focus during his 8-year presidency.
“3.) underestimated the complexity of F35′s nearly 7 million lines of computer codes”
Writing 7 million of code lines is begging to have thousand of bugs to fix for at least a decade. What to just complex enough to be functional and simple enough to be robust? It looks like they are trying to make things complex for the sake of being complex.
Oh, that’s not just the F35, that’s ALL modern jet fighters, that need that much software!
Why do you think the Eurofighter/Typhoon was so many decades behind schedule?
You’re designing a fighter that *cannot* fly a straight line, at subsonic speeds, without the computer ‘taking the stick’!
This ‘unstable flight’ makes them *really* maneuverable, but, yeah, the software is a witch to develop…
F22 runs on fewer than 2 million lines of programming codes; F35′s 7 million lines flight & fire control is simply insane”
Giving wildly over optimistic time and cost estimes is SOP for these programs. Everyone knows the estimates are a complete lie (experience with every other major military project has taught that) but its the only way to win the contract and get such projects approved. Regardless of the capability of the tech, if actual estimates were given then the program would never gain funding. Everyone plays the game. Everyone knows its a game.
> “F35′s 7 million lines flight & fire control is simply insane”
Very true, and its C++ code which means bugs bugs bugs.