Colin has advanced the story bro­ken by InsideDefense​.com this morn­ing about huge cost esti­mates that could dra­mat­i­cally restruc­ture the Joint Strike Fighter program.

A pre­lim­i­nary Pentagon cost esti­mate that the F-​​35 could cost as much as $17.1 bil­lion more than cur­rently planned is prompt­ing calls from con­gres­sional sources for the pro­gram to be reassessed and restructured.

The con­gres­sional sources also wryly noted this seemed to raise ques­tions about the wis­dom of Defense Secretary Robert Gates recent trip to the F-​​35 plant in Fort Worth to show his sup­port for the pro­gram. One aide scoffed that the new cost esti­mates were no sur­prise to any­one who hasnt drunk the JSF Kool-​​Aid.

The new cost esti­mate comes from the JSF Joint Estimate Team, formed this sum­mer by Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn.

Two con­gres­sional aides famil­iar with the pro­gram said. the cost esti­mate seemed to indi­cate that the approach of devel­op­ing, build­ing, fly­ing and test­ing planes as they come off the assem­bly line known as con­cur­rency may pose too much pro­gram risk in the short term and should lead Defense Secretary Robert Gates to scale back the empha­sis on pro­duc­ing and test­ing planes and trim the num­ber of planes the Pentagon wants to buy in next years budget. 

Be sure to read the entire story and to troll over to Inside for the the JET gouge. As one intel­li­gent observer noted when he heard the news: “this could mean the end of manned com­bat flight”…

– Christian

From our boy Steve Trimble at Flight International, we’ve received the lat­est snap of a Lockheed F-​​35B look­ing all bad a$$ with a weapons loadout.

While it looks all cool for the air show set, I’d have to wonder…stealth?

(FIRE IN THE HOLE!)

– Christian

How much do you want to bet that some­how money will find its way back into the final bill for GE’s engine? And, hey, I know, let’s pay Boeing for an alter­nate air­frame too! (CAL)

It prob­a­bly wont mean much in the long run, but the Senate voted today to approve an amend­ment by Joseph Lieberman (I-​​Conn.), long-​​time oppo­nent of the F-​​136, to strip $438.9 mil­lion for the sec­ond F-​​35 engine.

It will be dif­fi­cult to prove, but I bet this was one of those trades that were worked out before the vote to kill the F-​​22. Sen. John McCain sup­ported Liebermans amend­ment and it was approved by voice vote not a roll call vote, which would have left a very clear trail for every­one to fol­low. While this may be por­trayed as another vic­tory for the Obama admin­is­tra­tion, which has threat­ened to veto the defense autho­riza­tion bill should it include the F-​​136 fund­ing, I think the Obama admin­is­tra­tions posi­tion is sec­ondary to any deals that were worked out before the F-​​22 vote.

The amend­ment would hold up the fund­ing until the defense sec­re­tary tells Congress that build­ing the F-​​136 would lead to lower pro­gram costs, improve the planes readi­ness and not dis­rupt the pro­grams devel­op­ment or result in fewer fighters.

McCain and Lieberman are very close and work together almost as well as the Arizona sen­a­tor worked with the recently departed John Warner of Virginia. And McCain led the fight against the F-​​22, which Lieberman sup­ported mightily.

The rea­son I think this prob­a­bly wont amount to much is that it was approved by voice vote and the House Armed Services Committee nego­tia­tors will note this dur­ing the con­fer­ence dis­cus­sions. Also, the appro­pri­a­tors are almost cer­tain to include money for the F-​​136 pro­gram in their bill. Unless some deals we dont know about yet were worked out dur­ing the autho­riza­tion vote.

President Obama had threat­ened to veto the bill over the pro­vi­sion autho­riz­ing $439 mil­lion for the backup engine if he believes it would seri­ously dis­rupt the over­all program.

– Colin Clark

According to a release:

Maj. Joseph T. “O.D.” Bachmann departed the run­way at Lockheed Martin’s Fort Worth plant at 11:29 a.m. CDT and flew the air­craft to 15,000 feet, check­ing han­dling qual­i­ties and engine response before land­ing one hour and 15 min­utes later.

“The plane per­formed won­der­fully,” said Bachmann, a mem­ber of the F-​​35 Integrated Test Force and one of the team test pilots who will fly the F-​​35B Lightning II at the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., test site, begin­ning this sum­mer. “The U.S. Marine Corps will be get­ting an air­craft with extra­or­di­nary capa­bil­i­ties that is very easy to fly. Today is another step toward deliv­ery of the first jets to Marines on the front line.”

Bachmann flew the con­ven­tional ver­sion of the JSF dur­ing the test run, and he’s the sec­ond mil­i­tary pilot to fly the jet after Air Force jet jock Lt. Col. James “Flipper” Kromberg flew the CTOL ver­sion in January 2008.

More on Bachmann:

During his mil­i­tary career, Bachmann made two deploy­ments in sup­port of Operation Iraqi Freedom — one from the “Harrier Carrier,” USS Bataan, and the other land-​​based at Al Asad, Iraq. During flight oper­a­tions in Iraq, Bachmann earned four Air Medals and a Navy Commendation with a Combat V.

And I just love this line from Lockheed in their press release…

Three F-​​35 vari­ants derived from a com­mon design, devel­oped together and using the same sus­tain­ment infra­struc­ture world­wide will replace at least 13 types of air­craft for 11 nations ini­tially, mak­ing the Lightning II the most cost-​​effective fighter pro­gram in his­tory (empha­sis added). 

Despite that absurd mar­ket­ing slo­gan, we at DT con­grat­u­late Bachmann for a safe and enjoy­able flight and wish him the best dur­ing the rest of his flight test duties.

– Christian

In the inter­est of fair­ness, I just noticed this story and thought it best to include it here. We cov­ered this issue when it broke back in May…

Pentagon Rescinds Report on Possible Leaks of Jet’s Secrets

By Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 25, 2008; Page D02

The Pentagon’s inspec­tor gen­eral yes­ter­day rescinded a pre­vi­ously issued report that said tech­nol­ogy in the U.S. military’s newest fighter plane may have been com­pro­mised by unau­tho­rized access to facil­i­ties and com­put­ers of BAE Systems, one of the aircraft’s builders.

BAE is one of the two main sub­con­trac­tors work­ing on the $300 bil­lion F-​​35 Joint Strike Fighter pro­gram and is build­ing some of the plane’s elec­tron­ics and weapons sys­tems and parts of its body. Bethesda-​​based Lockheed Martin is the lead con­trac­tor on the jet fighter pro­gram, which is being devel­oped by the United States and eight for­eign part­ners, includ­ing Britain. Northrop Grumman of Los Angeles is the project’s other main subcontractor.

In work­ing on major air­craft, con­trac­tors often have to share sen­si­tive and clas­si­fied infor­ma­tion, and the gov­ern­ment has safe­guards in place for its use.

In a March report, the Defense Department inspec­tor gen­eral said “incom­plete” Pentagon over­sight may have increased “the risk of unin­tended or delib­er­ate release of infor­ma­tion to for­eign competitors.“ 

BAE is get­ting into a pretty wide array of defense projects for the United States, includ­ing recently tak­ing over man­age­ment of the Marine Corps Test and Evaluation office near Quantico. If the com­pany wants to keep wrap­ping its ten­drils around more and more of the US defense mar­ket, it was impor­tant to purge this issue from its rep­u­ta­tion — no mat­ter how ten­u­ous it was.

(Gouge: NC)

– Christian

p>Other peo­ple can debate whether the JSF is a waste of money, as vul­ner­a­ble as a clay pigeon at a trap range or the best thing since the A-​​10.

Our good friend and con­trib­u­tor Steve Trimble has been get­ting the goods on the pro­gram for a long time and con­tin­ues his good work over at the DEW Line blog on Flight International’s Web site.

I cov­ered the pro­gram back dur­ing the con­cept demon­stra­tor phase and was always a bit per­son­ally par­tial to the Boeing ver­sion because I liked the idea of a lift­ing body con­cept and the scoop air intake (per­fect for shark’s teeth — it just looked more intim­i­dat­ing). I did get a chance to see the Lockheed ver­sion of the STOVL JSF sit­ting on the hover stand at that company’s Skunk Works facil­ity in Palmdale and have always been intrigued by the lift fan engineering.

Unfortunately, as our boy Steve has reported, it’s going to be a while before the STOVL plane flies in real life. So for now, this YouTube video will have to suf­fice.

(Gouge: ST)

– Christian

One of the most impor­tant air­craft of the 21st Century made its first flight last month — the F-​​35B Short Take-​​Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) vari­ant of the 5th gen­er­a­tion Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Named Lighting II, the F-​​35B will pro­vide a first-​​line fighter/​strike air­craft for use from U.S. STOVL/​helicopter car­ri­ers and from a half-​​dozen for­eign air­craft carriers. 

The Lockheed Martin F-​​35B made its first flight on 11 June, piloted by BAE test pilot Graham Tomlinson. A for­mer Royal Air Force pilot, Tomlinson flew the air­craft in con­ven­tional take­off and land­ing modes from the Lockheed Martin facil­ity at Fort Worth, Texas. Transition to short/​vertical take­offs and land­ings and hover flight will begin early next year. 

The F-​​35B was the sec­ond Lightning II to begin flight tests, fol­low­ing the con­ven­tional take­off and land­ing F-​​35A, which first flew on 15 December 2006. That air­craft has made more than 40 flights to date. The F-​​35B is the sec­ond of 19 devel­op­ment and demon­stra­tion air­craft. The next vari­ant to fly will be the F-​​35C, con­fig­ured for air­craft car­rier operations. 

F-​​35 deliv­er­ies are to begin in 2010 and con­tinue well beyond 2030. The F-​​35/​JSF pro­gram is one of the few Defense efforts that has the full endorse­ment of the Department of Defense, the mil­i­tary ser­vices, and the Congress.   

The F-​​35B STOVL vari­ant will replace the AV-​​8B Harrier in U.S. Marine Corps squadrons, and GR (ground attack/​reconnaissance) series Harriers aboard British air­craft car­ri­ers. Several other nations have “signed on” to the F-​​35B pro­gram, both for land-​​based oper­a­tion as well as from exist­ing and planned VSTOL carriers. 

While the Harrier was infe­rior to most con­tem­po­rary land-​​based fighter/​attack air­craft, the F-​​35B will have the speed, elec­tron­ics, and stealth char­ac­ter­is­tics of its land-​​based con­tem­po­raries. However, the F-​​35B will have a range of some 450 nau­ti­cal miles on inter­nal fuel com­pared to more than 600 nau­ti­cal miles for the F-​​35A/​C variants. 

(more…)

In case you all missed it, Lockheed took its first major test flight of the STOVL JSF today.

From Lockheed Martin:

With test pilot Graham Tomlinson at the con­trols, the short takeoff/​vertical land­ing (STOVL) Lockheed Martin [NYSE: LMT] F-​​35B Lightning II streaked into blue Texas skies Wednesday, mark­ing the first flight of an air­craft that will pro­vide a com­bi­na­tion of capa­bil­i­ties never before avail­able: stealth, super­sonic speed and STOVL bas­ing flexibility.

Tomlinson, a for­mer Royal Air Force Harrier pilot now employed by BAE Systems, per­formed a con­ven­tional take­off at 10:17 a.m. CDT from Lockheed Martins Fort Worth facil­ity. As planned, all ini­tial F-​​35B flights will be made using con­ven­tional take­offs and land­ings, with tran­si­tions to short take­offs, hov­ers and ver­ti­cal land­ings begin­ning early next year. Tomlinson guided the jet to 15,000 feet and per­formed a series of han­dling tests, engine-​​power vari­a­tions and sub­sys­tems checks before land­ing at 11:01 a.m. CDT.

A great team effort led to a relaxed first flight, with the air­craft han­dling and per­form­ing just as we pre­dicted based on STOVL sim­u­la­tor test­ing and fly­ing the F-​​35A, Tomlinson said. The F-​​35B, known as BF-​​1, becomes the sec­ond Lightning II to enter flight test, pre­ceded by the con­ven­tional take­off and land­ing (CTOL) F-​​35A, which first flew in December 2006 and has com­pleted 43 flights. The F-​​35B that flew today is the sec­ond of 19 System Development and Demonstration air­craft and the first to incor­po­rate new weight-​​saving design fea­tures that will apply to all future F-​​35 aircraft.

You know the Brits (and Marines) are psy­ched. Now, what I’m wait­ing for are the tran­si­tion flight tests. I want to see just how that lift fan design works when it’s pushed around a lit­tle bit.

– Christian

(Gouge: The Dew Line)
– Christian

Our boy Steve Trimble posted a piece this morn­ing on a series of hover pit tests con­ducted by Lockheed Martin with it’s F-​​35B pro­to­type — they’re call­ing it the BF-​​1.

Hover pit tests com­pleted two days ago moved the first short-​​takeoff-​​and-​​vertical-​​landing (STOVL) vari­ant of the Lockheed Martin F-​​35 within days or weeks of its first flight. 

A Lockheed spokesman con­firms the propul­sion sys­tem for the STOVL demon­stra­tor named BF-​​1 com­pleted a series of con­ver­sions from con­ven­tional mode to ver­ti­cal land­ing mode. 

The tests were con­ducted at Lockheeds hover pit, where the air­craft is teth­ered to the ground on top of a steel grate. The pit allows Lockheeds engi­neers to mea­sure ver­ti­cal thrust gen­er­ated by the engine.

(more…)