Further delays in US F-35 testing schedule

[dapaterson]

PBO numbers are not identical.  But there are similarities.


PBO explictly omits all infra costs associated with the project; the DND estimate includes infra.  New hangers and facilities are a significant dollar amount.

PBO cites a range of $108-$148M per unit, compared to the MND stating it will be $75M per unit.


The PBO estimate was in reply to several questions.  The questions asked did not correspond to the estimates made by DND.  It's poor reporting (but unsurprising) that people are comparing the two totals directly; what's needed instead is a comparison of the two estiamtes at the "line item" level, to identify where there are material differences and then attempt to understand where the differences come from.  Saying "$30B not $16B!" is pointless noise.

 

[MarkOttawa]

....the US Marines are a subordinate Department of the US Navy -- it's the Secretary of the Navy's job to support the Marines.

The Marines are only "subordinate" in the same sense that both they and the USN are under the secretary; they are now  co-equal services:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/leadership/secnav_respons.asp

SECNAV is responsible for the formulation and implementation of policies and programs that are consistent with the national security policies and objectives established by the President and the Secretary of Defense. The Department of the Navy consists of two uniformed Services: the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps.

Which is why I said the secretary was hedging the bets, not the navy itself.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[SupersonicMax]

As the F-22 is the only platform capable of performing the role of the F-117, and they are no longer being produced, it is important to have a fleet of a/c that can perform in that role.  The F-35 is the only option available to do that.

Actually, the F-22 is an Air Superiority fighter with very, very limited A/G capability (JDAM, with no possibility of dropping them dump accurately or lase them in, no FLIR, etc)  It is NOT a multi-role fighter.

The fact of the matter is, since the mid 70’s, no aircraft has been designed as a “fighter” – they ALL have multirole capabilities

False.  Only the Hornet had Multi-Role capabilities from the get go.  The Viper was initially a day-only point defence fighter.  Later upgraded to a Multi-Role fighter (it could not even initially carry radar guided missiles).  The Eagle was an Air Superiority fighter, later modified for a Strike platform (Strike Eagle) and later added the capability to drop JDAMS (again, very very very limited A/G capabilities). 

Comparing the F-22 to the F-35 is like comparing apple and oranges.  They are 2 very very different platforms, but they complement each other.  One will assure Air Supremacy while the other will strike.

 

[WingsofFury]

Actually, the F-22 is an Air Superiority fighter with very, very limited A/G capability (JDAM, with no possibility of dropping them dump accurately or lase them in, no FLIR, etc)  It is NOT a multi-role fighter.

I agree with your assessment.  Perhaps that is why, in the event of any future war scenarios, a B-2 would more than likely fill the role of the F-117.  Thoughts?

False.  Only the Hornet had Multi-Role capabilities from the get go.  The Viper was initially a day-only point defence fighter.  Later upgraded to a Multi-Role fighter (it could not even initially carry radar guided missiles).  The Eagle was an Air Superiority fighter, later modified for a Strike platform (Strike Eagle) and later added the capability to drop JDAMS (again, very very very limited A/G capabilities).

Thanks for the correction.  I always thought the "progression" of the Viper to a multirole platform happened earlier on in its pre-production days. 

Based on the above, would it be true to state that there are no a/c in the current USAF and US Navy inventory apart from the Raptor which haven't been created as variants of previously existing airframes?

I still wonder why people don't acknowledge that our current fleet of Hornets wasn't "proven" at the time we purchased them, only entering operational service with the US in 1983 and with us even before then in 1982.

 

[WingsofFury]

Comparing the F-22 to the F-35 is like comparing apple and oranges.  They are 2 very very different platforms, but they complement each other.  One will assure Air Supremacy while the other will strike.

Agreed.

And ultimately, isn't that what a/c in an alliance are meant to do from the get go?

 

[MarkOttawa]

Quite.  Which is why Canada may not require the F-35's stealthy initial strike capability.  You will note from my excerpt above that even the US intends most of the plane's strike opeerations to be in non-stealthy mode.

In the end for me it's all about cost; no-one now knows  even remotely what the F-35's actual price for us will be in 2014 when we are supposed to sign a contract.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Haletown]

In the end for me it's all about cost; no-one now knows  even remotely what the F-35's actual price for us will be in 2014 when we are supposed to sign a contract.

Mark
Ottawa

Cost is a factor of course but the first and biggest and most critical factor is quality of the kit we procure for our troops . . .  especially the ones ate the pointy end of the stick.

If cost was the prime mover we would have bought some russian crap instead of the C-17 and the C130J's  . . or god forbid waited for the A400. We would have some lesser tank than the Leo2, we would have bought bog standard M-16's instead of producing a more expensive but better version . . . it could be along list.

We need to replace the 18's and the other aircraft are older, inferior and not much cheaper.

We can afford the 35's . . .  we still devout a very paltry amount of our GDP to our national defense . . .and as our world gets ever more wobbly, having properly equipped troops - across the board not just in the Air Force is going to be a critical factor.

Money for good kit saves lives.  It also sends a message to people who are willing to volunteer for Canada's military that their service and lives are highly valued.

No more Ross rifles or Sherman tanks or Iltis vehicles.

 

[WingsofFury]

Quite.  Which is why Canada may not require the F-35's stealthy initial strike capability.  You will note from my excerpt above that even the US intends most of the plane's strike opeerations to be in non-stealthy mode.

In the end for me it's all about cost; no-one now knows  even remotely what the F-35's actual price for us will be in 2014 when we are supposed to sign a contract.

Mark
Ottawa

So are you prepared to say that flying a non stealthy a/c vs. a stealthy a/c is a better option for our pilots?  Regardless of the role they are acting in?  If you do, then please justify your response.

As I have tried to outline to you above, a stealthy strike mode is not just practical for an initial strike - it is a practical mode for ANY aircraft performing in the strike role.  You only have to ask a pilot who's been shot down while performing that role in any type of a/c how he feels about having stealth incorporated into an aircraft's design.

Finally, you state that "In the end for me it's all about cost" - well, take a look at the summary on Page 10 of the above noted report.  It clearly indicates that, even under their way of looking at cost, the difference for the actual purchase of the airplanes is only $3 billion dollars.  I have already stated above that the difference if they don't use the almost $150 million in price and instead use the $110 million which is the only referenced price acknowledged even by a source you cite then there is a saving of almost $3 billion dollars.

The "meat" if you want to call it that according to this report is in the Operating and Support cost - which nobody has any idea about until we actually start flying these things operationally.

 

[Infanteer]

In the end for me it's all about cost;

....then I hope one of your family members will one day fight in something that was the cheapest thing money could buy.

 

[MarkOttawa]

I meant cost in the sense of "reasonable".  Our son is in a combat arm of the CF.

As I have highlighted the US military in fact sees much of the F-35's strike role after initial attack in the non-stealth,  ordnance on wings, mode when a much larger load can be carried.  A non-stealth aircraft can equally do that.

The French and Germans are not acquiring stealth fighters and the UK will end up with around double the number of Typhoons compared to F-35Cs (we are now indeed planning to have more F-35s than they).  Could not Canada--depending on the cost--have a non-stealth role for our aircraft?

In any case I suspect that within a decade or so the initial strike role will be close to being handed over to cruise missiles (having done some of that for years) combined with stealthy UCAVs in place of manned aircraft--along the lines of the X-47B and the Phantom Ray;
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/98558.0.html
when the X-35 and X-32 were developed such UCAVs were but a distant dream.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Meanwhile back at current F-35 reality:

F-35 test flights halted after dual in-flight generator failures
http://blogs.star-telegram.com/sky_talk/2011/03/f-35-flights-halted-after-dual-in-flight-generator-failures-i.html

The gov't, for its part, seems to be feeling the (re)heat:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/03/11/pol-hawn-f35s.html

The government is going to turn over more information on the long-term cost of the F-35 fighter jets, a Conservative MP said Friday.

Laurie Hawn, parliamentary secretary to the minister of national defence, says there are "probably millions of pages" about the costs associated with buying and maintaning the Joint Strike Fighters made by Lockheed Martin. He said it's hard to release the information because Canada is working on the purchase with eight other NATO countries, who all have a say in what defence officials can give out.

"It's not an unfair question to say where's the information, and we're going to work to get as much of that as we can," Hawn said...

The government, however, said it stands by its figures. It says it has committed $9-billion to buy the 65 planes, for a per-plane cost of around $70 million [emphasis added, good blinking luck]. It estimates the fleet will cost between $250 million and $300 million to service per year...

Page cautions that any cost estimates, his own or those from other sources, should be viewed in the context of the methodology used and the data available. The budget officer said in his report that his office asked DND to explain the methodology behind its estimates.

"DND confirmed that such an analysis has not yet been undertaken," the report says...

Page was asked to report on whether a competitive bid would have saved money compared to the cost of the sole-sourced deal, but he said there is insufficient data available for him to make such an assessment [honest, what?]...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[MarkOttawa]

Gov't fights back:

Tories slam budget officer’s stealth report
Assessment of $30-million cost called ‘illogical’
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Canada/1232727.html

Plus a lengthy message from Laurie Hawn with some heated discussion:
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-15259.html


Meanwhile a National Post editorial expresses some doubts:

Second thoughts on the F-35
http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Second+thoughts/4428163/story.html

Mark
Ottawa

 

[PuckChaser]

Plus a lengthy message from Laurie Hawn with some heated discussion:
http://www.f-16.net/f-16_forum_viewtopic-t-15259.html

I think that's the best put together reasoning for buying the F-35 I've seen. Most anti-F35 types will simply ignore it, but Laurie Hawn addresses all of the concerns with candid clarity.

 

[Rifleman62]

Too late, the damage has been done. Irritable. It costs whatever the PBO says.

That's what you get when you don't communicate.

 

[MarkOttawa]

Could be interesting:

House Hearings On JSF Tuesday
Posted by Bill Sweetman at 3/14/2011 11:17 AM CDT
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/blogs/defense/index.jsp?plckController=Blog&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&newspaperUserId=27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog%3a27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post%3a34fca60f-0a68-44a9-ac83-32b662508e6c&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest

It's going to be an active week in JSF-land. In the engineering offices, the investigation continues into the root causes of last week's double generator failure, alongside the establishment of a return-to-flight plan. And tomorrow, the House Armed Services Committee is conducting the biggest JSF-related hearing in a year, including the congressional debut of program office director VAdm Dave Venlet.

Without trying to pre-judge the severity of the generator problem, losing two out of three generators to a single event is not trivial at the best of times - particularly on an aircraft where the primary flight control is electrically driven. The other major emergency to date in the flight test program also concerned the electrical system, which is unique: it includes a 270VDC back-up battery for the flight controls, and starter-generators on the engine and on the integrated powerpack (IPP) that provides emergency and auxiliary power.

We'll see whether tomorrow's hearings provide as much drama as last year's Senate event. Dr Christine Fox, director of the Pentagon's Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, is not among the witnesses, but the Government Accountability Office will be presenting testimony.

A good place for questioning to start would be on the controversy that Fox's statement kicked off last year. The CAPE estimates of average acquisition costs were at a level where the Pentagon would almost certainly not be able to afford planned production rates, raising the ugly specter of another cost-and-numbers death spiral.

Acquisition czar Ashton Carter, however, has kept that monster at bay with the concept of "will cost" and "should cost". CAPE's estimates, based on experience from other programs (it is perhaps a misnomer to call it "historical" since it includes the present-day Super Hornet) are "will cost" predictions. Canada's Parliamentary Budget Office used the same analysis in its own report, issued last week. But Carter's "should cost" is a lower target figure, to be attained by improving manufacturing and assembly processes and reforming management.

"Should cost" is not an impossible goal in theory. Supoer Hornet costs have been held down and reduced since the program started, including two successive redesigns of the final assembly line and a new forward fuselage. In the early 1990s, McDonnell Douglas drastically reduced the cost of the C-17 (incentivized by the cold touch of the Pentagon's pistol muzzle behind the program's right ear). Airbus carried out its Power8 and Power8+ initiatives to offset the impact of the declining dollar on its competitiveness.

However, all of these efforts started with stable, working and tested aircraft configurations, but JSF is apparently trying to achieve the "will cost" to "should cost" transition in parallel with system development and demonstration. That will be more difficult [emphasis added], and tomorrow's hearings would be a good time to ask program leaders how they plan to do it.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[Haletown]

The French and Germans are not acquiring stealth fighters and the UK will end up with around double the number of Typhoons compared to F-35Cs (we are now indeed planning to have more F-35s than they).  Could not Canada--depending on the cost--have a non-stealth role for our aircraft?


Mark
Ottawa

The French & Germans would probably love to have a  modern Stealth fighter but they have sunk so many tens of billions of Euros into subsidizing their domestic aviation industry that cannot afford it or accept the political fall out of buying American and putting all those lovely unionized aerospace workers out of work.

Bet they would like to have C-17's as well but they are stuck with the Treasury depleting/jobs creation project known as the A400.  But I digress.

 

[PuckChaser]

The French and Germans are not acquiring stealth fighters and the UK will end up with around double the number of Typhoons compared to F-35Cs (we are now indeed planning to have more F-35s than they).  Could not Canada--depending on the cost--have a non-stealth role for our aircraft?

Then we're stuck with a Gen 4 aircraft for the next 30 years. Everyone else will have Gen 6-7 types flying by then, and we'll continue being 30 years behind the times. Why won't you let us have nice things, Mark?

 

[MarkOttawa]

I wrote above:

In any case I suspect that within a decade or so the initial strike role will be close to being handed over to cruise missiles (having done some of that for years) combined with stealthy UCAVs in place of manned aircraft--along the lines of the X-47B and the Phantom Ray;
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/98558.0.html
when the X-35 and X-32 were developed such UCAVs were but a distant dream.

I would imagine Gen. 6-7 fighters will almost all be UCAVS and the F-35 meanwhile will become obsolete in the initial strike role.  So why do we need it specifically--unless and until we have proof that we can buy it at or close to the acquisition cost the gov't claims--mid-$70 million each?

As far as I can see the gov't's policy--as opposed to the Air Force's--is driven almost completely by the hope of lots of contracts, jobs and votes, based on sales estimates that at this point are still pie in the fighter sky.  I still think LockMart basically blackmailed the gov't earlier this year, via Canadian industry, with the threat that if we did not announce immediately those contracts would go poof!  Note what Tony Clement said:
http://unambig.com/why-did-the-government-commit-to-the-f-35-threats/

Hell of a way to conduct serious defence matters.

Mark
Ottawa

 

[aesop081]

Then we're stuck with a Gen 4 aircraft for the next 30 years. Everyone else will have Gen 6-7 types flying by then, and we'll continue being 30 years behind the times. Why won't you let us have nice things, Mark?

You are getting too wraped up in the "Gen ____" smoke and mirors. It is meaningless.

 

[PuckChaser]

If the generations of fighters aren't important, why don't we just make a whole bunch of Spitfires and save the cash?