Alternate engine

All history now, but let us look back to a time when there were those debating the alternate engine for the F-35. Even when you strip away lobbyist effects, there were some good points.

Read all of this opinion piece from 2009:

In every case, the permanent bureaucracy cited its static “should cost” models to oppose establishing these second sources. Then as now, they dismissed consideration of human behavior under competitive pressure as unquantifiable.

Nowhere was the wisdom of annual competition better demonstrated than in the establishment of an alternative engine for the Air Force F-15 and F-16 fighters. Despite strong opposition from his own bureaucracy, Air Force Secretary Verne Orr, fed up with constant cost growth and repeated grounding of all fighters due to flaws in the sole-source engine, forced through the qualification of an alternative engine and contractor, and had the two compete every year thereafter.

The benefits from this annual competition came swiftly, were many and have endured. There was steady improvement in reliability, performance and fuel economy and a dramatic drop in engine-caused accidents. By the second year of full competition, the cost per engine had dropped 20 percent. The Navy soon followed suit in choosing an alternative engine for the F-14 with similar benefits.
Jacques Gansler, a former Clinton Defense official, did a thorough study of 10 sole-source Pentagon aircraft programs and seven commercial competitively produced aircraft programs. The sole-source programs increased in cost an average 46 percent, and the competitive programs dropped in cost an average 15 percent.

The single-source push is back for the F-35 — even though project manager himself, Marine Brig.-Gen. David Heinz, at some risk to his career, publicly protested the bureaucracy’s foolishness, noting: “The real competition occurs when, no kidding, you’re both making the engine, and you’re both getting a chance to bid on that price in a particular lot and that’s when you see the real benefit. And that’s what has not yet occurred.”

The F-35 is too important to allow the bureaucrats to prevail. The expensive development of the alternative engine is nearly complete and testing is under way, with all milestones met. By contrast, the current sole-source supplier has already overrun its development cost by more than $2 billion and counting. Worse, the Pentagon has reported to Congress that each production engine will increase in cost 30 percent to an incredible $8.7 million each.

What is different also is that this discussion should have never happened. Just like "quick-mate joints", "affordability" as the goal, "model acquisition as the goal", concurrent production overlap, build in numbers, worldwide supply chain, and many other issues, the alternate engine was one of the things sold to Congress, as value, in order for them to hand over money for the Joint Strike Fighter program in the 1990's and onward.



Today...we have this: