Reader comments - more on F-35 funny numbers

Don Bacon

Good knight, Sir Angus, you got it all bollixed up but got the big award
anyhow. Good for you. But let's hope that your successors aren't
victims of bullying and bastardization as you apparently were, when it
comes to procuring unaffordable failures.

On April 8, 2014 as reported by ReutersGeneral Chris Bogdan, F-35 program executive, told senators that the cost of the Air Force model, originally advertised to cost $69 million, that the jet stands now at around $112 million, including the engine, but the program office and industry expected to drive that cost down to between $80 million and $85 million per plane by 2019. Unbelievable.

Others calculate a much higher F-35 unit production cost. How does Bogdan get his $112 million? JPO's DellaVedova : "Defense contracts include the price for more items than just the cost of the aircraft. These items may include costs such as spare parts, flight simulators, tooling, support equipment, and manpower to maintain the aircraft. To derive the a ccurate cost of the aircraft, it is necessary to remove those additional items from the total and divide the recurring aircraft costs by the quantity in each lot." This "removing additional items" and in fact the whole cost calculation has no basis and the calculations have not been provided.

But it's incorrect to "remove additional items." The procurement cost according to theDOD Acquisition Glossary: "Equal to the sum of the procurement cost for prime mission equipment, the procurement cost for support items, and the procurement cost for initial spares." F-35s need this stuff to operate.

So enough with JPO/Lockheed fairy tales, let's go to DOD Comptroller data:
PROGRAM ACQUISITION COST BY WEAPON SYSTEM
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
FISCAL YEAR 2015 BUDGET REQUEST
OFFICE OF THE UNDER SECRETARY OF
DEFENSE (COMPTROLLER)/CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

p. 1-7 USAF F-35A
$Millions
procurement + (19/29) spares
FY2014 LRIP- 8
$3,355.9 + $113.2 = $3,469.1 for 19 = $182.6
[NOTE: The FY2015 figures are prelimi nary.]

This chart from the Pentagon Comptroller illustrates the same thing, a procurement unit cost of $185.7 million. Wow, that's a lot, and much higher than Bogdan's $112 million which he provides no basis for. It's a wish, not a cost.

These F-35 costs do not include the future retrofit of what are essentially prototype planes, because the F-35 is still in development inclu ding test and evaluation with the harder tests yet to come. Deficiencies found in testing mandate engineering changes which must be applied at depot. The largest risk with developing the jets simultaneously with production is the need to retrofit and fix structural problems discovered in planes even as more units are being produced. The largest cost comes from having to strip down a manufactured plane and put in a fix. US Air Force retrofit costs for a few dozen planes have increased to almost $200 million dollars this year.

These costs also do not include a principal "procurement cost for support items" which is military construction, hangar facilities complete with the specialized utilities and equipment necessary to support these new electronic airplanes. In the U.S., i nstallation costs have surpassed $100 million at each of three airbases planning to house F-35s: Hill, Luke and Yuma. The UK's total investment including installation costs has come to £5 billion so far for 18 aircraft - that's £278 million ($417m) each.

So much for “It will affordable." The F-35 is not affordable, even if it weren't currently a faulty prototype with buggy software, bungled sensors and a bum engine.