Canadian F-35 buy plan history

As we start the conversation over Canada's problems replacing its' CF-18 fighter aircraft, let us look at this comparison of how the F-35 buy plans were looked at over the years.


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The real F-35 LRIP-5 costs

The U.S. Defense Department and Lockheed Martin have reached an agreement for the F-35 low rate initial production contract batch 5 also known as LRIP-5.

This has taken over a year to figure out due to the new requirement for fixed price contracts for the program.

The word is that the contract is somewhere around $4 billion for 32 aircraft. Little-to-no mention is given to an additional over $2B dollars that make up LRIP-5 production costs.

The spend on LRIP-5 F-35s is not around $4B. It is over $6B.

Last year, at the end of December, an undefinitized DOD contract for LRIP-5 F-35 airframes was released. At the time LRIP-5 was projected to be for 30 aircraft, down from 42 aircraft when long-lead contracts started being issued in 2010.

Trends: when the program started many years ago, LRIP-5 was to be 120 aircraft.

The recent announcement (with a released contract expected sometime in December), is hailed as a success. However, according to this must-read analysis from early in 2012 (based on LRIP-5 being 30 aircraft and not the newly revised 32), $4B only gets you some of the roll-away price for the jets.

So, in procurement dollars alone, expect the average cost of a LRIP-5 F-35 to be over $198M each, not counting engineering changes.

Also, TR2 hardware, needed to drive Block 3 software, does not arrive until LRIP-6 aircraft are delivered.

All this is for a troubled aircraft that is still nowhere near go-to war trim.

" ...about $77 million per copy."
-Robert Gates, U.S. Secretary of Defense, Feb. 2008.

Acquired acquisition taste

An NY Times piece that does in-fact have some interesting info about not only the history of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program but also some interesting signs that don’t go with the prettier parts of this story by AV Week Reuters.

Lockheed has already lost profits, earning only $28 million of a possible $87.5 million in award fees for meeting development goals in 2010 and 2011.

That LRIP-5 contract should be any day now...

Normalization of alternate realities

(from a Steidle paper, 1997 - click image to make larger)


In an editorial by USN Rear Adm. (ret.) Craig Steidle ("Fixing the real JSF problems" p.90 Aviation Week & Space Technology/November 5/12, 2012, subscription), We hear from the former JSF DOD program boss of many years ago.

A bit of history: below is a 1997 paper of his which begs the question: how much of the fairy dust did he believe then?

In the recent AV Week opinion piece he writes about how the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program has lost its way. Here are some of the higlights.


1.1993 goal from then DOD boss “bottom-up review”, was to develop a joint family of systems to reduce life-cycle costs.

2.Following principles established by the 1986 Packard commission, warfighters and technologists worked together to make cost-performance trades, while applying technology to cut costs, not just to add performance. Technology was to be matured before engineering and manufacturing development started, and government and industry would form integrated product teams to incorporate all available best practices. These initiatives were underpinned by a disciplined requirements generation process and rigorous cost-performance trade studies.

3.But as the program moved on, leadership let the focus on affordability atrophy. Both the government and contractor were at fault. What should have been a core pillar did not evolve into a culture that would drive process development, induce change and inform decision-making.

4.While chairing several “independent manufacturing review team" meetings from 2008-10, Steidel and his colleagues were appalled that neither the contractor nor JSFPO mentioned “affordable” or “affordability” during initial presentations.

5.The statements of work he reviewed did not incorporate cost reduction.

6.Recovery of problems was made more difficult by the JSFPO’s arrogance in shutting out the technical authority of the services’ systems commands.

7.Contractors’ rigid adherence to legacy manufacturing practices—to the point of “normalization of deviance,” or “we have always done it that way and it worked.”

8.Results: immature risk-management process; change-control managers could neither define process problems or forecast change volumes; schedules were constantly revised with no integrated program management schedule.

9.Blind optimism.

10.Technical arrogance.

But then the Admiral ends with the following, applying his own “normalisation of deviance" and even faith:

"The current F-35 program leadership has made strides in bringing this system to full-rate production and has embraced the pillar of affordability. Our requirements reviews show that the warfighters will have the best complement to their F-22 and Super Hornet/Growler strike capabilities, with a system performance beyond our initial expectations. We need to remain strongly committed to this joint program. Use these hard-learned lessons, embrace affordability as a core best practice, and together deploy this system to the fleet—or watch our board of directors on Capitol Hill take it away."

The problem with that hope is that it was he who mentioned years ago, that costs on the program don’t “flatten out” until you reach about 1500 aircraft. That would assume no serious technical problems. That was part of the “business plan” that Admiral Venlet, the recent F-35 DOD (JSFPO) boss lost confidence in.

At the rate the program is going, there won’t be 1500 airframes.

Ever.

Which leads us back to 1993 and the affordability goal of the program. Admiral Stiedle is looking at a death-hospice patient.

Not only "normalization of deviance" sir, but a total indifference to what is real.


--- What Steidle thought back in 1997 ---

Not a cure

Taxpayer funded “analysis” just isn’t working so well in this country when it comes to air power topics.

Take this latest from some that should know better:

Why the US Air Force needs the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

So according to ASPI, the USAF is in bad shape.

Yeah we know that.

Why someone would suggest a failed program to solve USAF problems makes me wonder.

Only just a little bit.

Am I being too harsh? Not when we are talking about spending tens-of-billions on a faulty product...and tens-of-billions more to fix the mistakes.

But, OK, if I am too harsh, consider another reason for ASPI failings re: air power topics.

They aren't stupid. They just have bad luck when thinking.

Faulty F-35s limp to Yuma's Operational Test Community

From a reader in relation to the Yuma fraud:

The funny thing is that all 3 jets hobbled to Yuma, yet were envisioned last month by Amos to arrive together for this ceremony. He even wanted 2 of them to perform a slow landing and a vertical landing, respectively, for the press and Sen McCain. That was vetoed by the test community as they have no test instrumentation with which to telemeter data to ground test stations (which Yuma doesn't have, either). Enough STOVL things still have a limited life on them or can't be trusted without external monitoring, yet "probation" was cleared??? Oh, and the Yuma pilots were not qualified in Mode 4 STOVL operations, either. Details.

Only 1 jet was ready last week, so off it went from Fort Worth with its KC-130 tanker (TX to AZ w/o weapons...tell me about the great range again...) and an F-18 chase plane. The "operational" F-35B still can't squawk an IFF code, thus part of the reason for the F-18 chase. The F-35B encountered clutch heating problems before the halfway point, and was forced to a lower altitude to open up a cooling envelope where the clutch cooling fan could be used. Sounds like the clutch drag problem isn't quite as solved as LM and the USG have told us. Be advised that none of this involved converting to STOVL inflight, it was merely cruising in CTOL-type mode at 20K feet.

The second and third jets were to deliver together today. Alas, one had a flight control problem and had to abort. So one went on its own with its KC-130 and F-18 to Yuma. As it held for the ceremonial arrival, it lost all nav systems. So elegant.

The third one departed hours later after having undergone emergency maintenance (any pressure to perform on a day like today??!!!). And yes, it too had its own KC-130 and F-18 chase. It had yet to arrive and some press releases already stated that 3 jets were on the ramp at Yuma. That's our beloved press, to include the cut and paste aerospace press beholden to their advertisers - as you have pointed out so well, Eric. Can't wait to hear about the state of F-35B #3 when it arrived at Yuma.

Operational...hmmm, I don't think so

LM Buzz

What are the the chances DOD LM Buzz could "report" accurately about the F-35 Yuma Fraud?

Not so good.

They have advert dollars to chase you know:

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RICO flight lands at Yuma

While there is no hard proof that Lenin said it, the term "useful idiots" applies to some of the F-35 fan-base.

For the rest, I suspect fraud is the justification to harness taxpayers to fund a faulty and obsolete weapon system that a country over $16T in the red can ill afford.

Much of the pro-F-35 publicity efforts are stitched up with faith-based arguements, hearsay and meme-theory all rolled up into a thana-marketing package which will hurt DOD combat readiness.

For years.

Consider the lastest effort by the cheerleaders at Second Line of Defense (SLD). Their "Gold Sponsor", Lockheed Martin, also the maker of the troubled F-35, want you to believe that delivering F-35B (short take-off and landing variant) Joint Strike Fighters to Yuma, Arizona is a good thing for the United States Marketing Corps.

The USMC leadership is using the same kind of plan that they used to field the MV-22 Osprey: market, hype, market, and get a woefully undertested aircraft to an operational test squadron as soon as possible.

The F-35B is not ready.

The mission software for the aircraft is not ready. The helmet and its visual cueing, (the aircraft has no heads-up-display) is not ready. The logistics system for maintenance people is not ready. The flight envelop is not fully expanded. There are no working weapons. This would entail a wide range of clearance scenarios and hitting actual air and surface targets.

SLD's big problem with being a zombie marketer of the Joint Strike Failure is that the U.S. DOD just handed an operational test squadron a non-ready aircraft. Operational test squadrons are supposed to figure out how to use a weapon for war and write up the procedure for operational training so other training squadrons have a solid (and safe) training program.

All that is pretty hard to do when the development testers are far from finished. Hard to work on tactics when you are just trying to make the aircraft work.

What we have is another piece of the puzzle of the F-35 fraud:

Produce the appearance of capability; meet "milestones" to get big pay-days and for the military leadership, advance your career.

At any cost.

I am curious when Congress--who have run out of other-peoples money to spend--will realise that their shift to the Pacific is depending on what the U.S. Justice Department and FBI in their world would call: "a criminal enterprise"?

Pinning the RICO Statute on all of this is not hard to do.

As America's combat readiness gets worse because its' "Department of Defense" buys a long line of dud combat systems (LCS, F-35, DDX, obsolete carrier air wings, amphibs with no well-deck, etc) the best strategy for the U.S. is to avoid war because we are not capable of winning.

And, propaganda from the likes of SLD won't improve that situation.

iPolitics wanders-Group-think-think-tank

Unfortunately, good intentions and fancy titles are no replacement for actual knowledge about Just So Failed F-35.

Funny how editors without a clue, let uninformed nonsense pose as useful information.

Other than PowerPoint, the author has nothing to base their theory on.

Try again, but thanks for playing...

Nope:

Defence procurement failures have often been explained away on the basis that they are complex, risky, and difficult to achieve without time and cost slippage. For some projects this is certainly true, the Navy’s Future Submarines and the JSF represent cases where for various political and technical reasons options are limited and risks unavoidable. However it would be wrong to assume that this was the case with all defence procurement; simple rules, common sense, and adequate planning can overcome many of these obstacles.

Many risks were avoidable with the Just So Failed. Just consider the history of the project and Australia's severe mistake in getting involved.

For defence procurement, it’s time to go back to basics.

Welcome to the party pal.

USAF's dream of all-stealth fighter force--now even more dead

Another damning indictment has appeared showing the United States Air Force (USAF) dream wanting an all-stealth fighter force is even more dead. The November-December 2012 issue of Air & Space Power Journal has an article, (The F-22 Acquisition Program,Consequences for the US Air Force’s Fighter Fleet) by a former USAF test pilot and F-22 squadron commander, Lt. Col. Christopher J. Niemi (PDF below).

It is good reading, although in many areas, not ground-breaking and maybe a bit too historical. The power in it comes from a person with significant operational experience. The timing of it and our future budget disaster era, could pretty much put an end to any claim USAF has on wanting the F-35 because Col. Niemi has provided a very large hammer to be used for more legacy fighter buys to recap USAF "needs".

This is OK in the coming years,  if the threats in the Pacific Rim allow legacy aircraft to operate in an acceptable fashion. I don't believe they will.

Note as always, articles from serving military members end with this:

The views and opinions expressed or implied in the Journal are those of the authors and should not be construed as carrying the official sanction of the Department of Defense, Air Force, Air Education and Training Command, Air University, or other agencies or departments of the US government.

Where Niemi is strong:
-He has actual F-22 ops experience; as well as F-15E ops experience.
-He notes all the kinds of conflicts where high-cost (and high operating cost) stealth aircraft are not needed. This includes a mention that history being what it is, one could buy 3 Super Hornets for the cost of one F-22.
-He notes the budget reality including poor procurement thinking at all levels.

Niemi states: F-22 range is less than F-15 range and requires more tanking. This disagrees with another former F-22 squadron commander, (BG Molloy from the Molloy paper (PDF). Niemi also states that super-cruise with the F-22 has limitations but due to his position of not being able to present hard operational scenarios he is unable to explain further.

HOBS heaters and WVR. The F-22 currently does not have this capability; years after it was a known combat need for every other fighter design; years after initial operating capability. Note; the F-35, if it is fielded to real operational squadrons, will have AIM-9x for external carry, in the non-stealth mode (rah, rah).

Niemi brings up the high-end SAM threat but seems less convinced about the high-end air-to-air threats.

For Niemi, the F-22 is superior in air-to-air and survivability vs. high end threats but is inferior to legacy aircraft designs in all other mission sets. Niemi's review of USAF fighter procurement history since the end of The Cold War, like the efforts of Aviation Week's Bill Sweetman, show that, with current U.S. military-industrial-congressional-complex skill-sets, "stealth is not free".

I would wager that if the House and Senate Armed Service Committee types and others, use this Niemi paper as a hard source, then:

-Reopening F-22 production, as an idea is dead.
-The F-35 program is in even more serious jeopardy.

Niemi's most important statements point toward USAF senior-leadership ethics. Those seem to be even more faulty than any aircraft design. And, the future of America's air superiority is still a flying question mark.

Risks ignored with the JSF--2000

Continuing with the "what we knew, way back when" theme, below I have a PDF from Proceedings of the Naval Institute, August 2000. Chuck Spinney puts on his captain obvious hat and well, the rest is history...

In March 1999, the Congressional Budget Office reported to the Senate Armed Services Committee that JSF costs might be underestimated by as much a 50%; in March 2000, the General Accounting Office told Congress the development program should be lengthened to reduce technical/cost risks: "To allow the JSF to proceed as planned-without maturing critical technologies-would perpetuate conditions that have led to cost growth and schedule delays in many prior DoD weapons system acquisition programs."

The GAO claims DoD restructured the program so that the EMD decision will be made with even less information than originally planned, and the program has migrated toward the traditional practice of developing technologies and products concurrently. It is important to remember that the X-32 and X-35 JSF demonstrators are even more limited as concept demonstrators than was the YF-22, so the risks created by concurrency could be even greater. The winner of the JSF "competition" will be determined by a flyoff demonstrating only low-speed handling, STOVL capability, and producibility with at least 70% parts commonality; the YF-22 supersonic cruise demonstrator demonstrated aerodynamics of high-speed, high-G maneuvering, and high alpha, low-speed maneuvering in mock dogfights.

The UK's paper tiger carrier

The negative sounding LOL’s are well deserved when we have something like this:

A typical deployment of one 65,000t vessel outside UK territorial waters would include an embarked air wing of 12 short take-off and vertical landing F-35Bs.

Wars can have a bad way of showing up quickly, in the here and not days from now.

For any deployment.

The Boy Scouts have it right: “Be prepared.”

A 6$,000 ton vessel deploying with 12 faulty, short-ranged strike aircraft that have a horrific cost-per-flying hour.

No on-board tanking or proper fixed-wing AWACs.

And if this kind of “force” was sunk outright, quickly, as an object lesson by an aggressor, what would the UK do?

Not much, because they are now officially, a hollow force.

And, the UK taxpayer is getting taken to the cleaners.

As always, best to make buying decisions when looking at a complete go-to-war product. Every potential F-35 customer / partner won’t have intelligent buying-power knowledge until 2019-2020 at the earliest.

JAST blast from the past

Today, along with some future posts, we will look at historical thinking and compare it against what we are now paying for with the F-35 program.

We will start out with the commentary in the PDF below.

"Yet our community has again embarked upon an expensive design and construction exercise focused on 'form,' which historically breeds powerful technology-business coalitions and political constituencies that become virtually unstoppable."

C.E. Myers, Jr.
November 1995

Defence low-balls F-35 cost assumptions

Australia's flawed New Air Combat Capability (NACC) office in Defence has another credibility problem with its rabid thana maketing effort which it has been using in order to keep pushing the F-35 on the over-stressed taxpayer.

Besides silliness from 2004, it seems the NACCs' operating costs assumptions for the F-35 are questionable.

Up to this time, no one in the Australian public knew what cost per flying hour assumptions were being used by the NACC to predict cost of ownership with the F-35. If someone knows some other sources, please comment.

A March 2012 white paper by Janes titled, "Fast jet cost per flight hour (CPFH)" quotes the following:

"RAAF F-35A estimated cost over 30 year operational service at 200 hours per year per aircraft" as $21,000 (USD) per flying hour.

A recent select acquisition report (SAR) by the U.S. quotes the F-16 as being $22,470 per flight hour and the F-35 to be $31,923 per flying hour.

That is a lot of difference to NACC assumptions.

The Jane's white paper is informative but weak. It refers to the F-35 as a "fifth-generation fighter" when no evidence exists other than marketing hype. Janes also uses different methods than the U.S. SAR to calculate cost per flying hour. They label the F-16 with a cost per flying hour of $7000 (figures based from a variety of USAF active, reserve and air guard units).

So if they are low with the F-16, how low are they with the F-35?

Ask the Dutch or the U.S. Navy.

The U.S. Government Account Office has also weighed in with F-35 operating costs assumptions, which when considered, show that they have uncovered a fair bit of marketing spin:

"The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program office underreported the average cost per flying hour for the aircraft in the 2010 SAR. The average, steady-state O&S cost per flying hour was reported as $16,425 (fiscal year 2002 dollars). Program officials told us that the number of aircraft used in the estimate for the Air Force’s inventory was not accurate and the estimate also did not project for future cost growth above inflation.

The estimate included approximately 528 extra aircraft that when calculating the average cost per flying hour, resulted in higher flight hours and lower average costs per hour. Further, according to the SAR, some of the F-35’s O&S costs were intentionally excluded from the estimate to enable comparison with the antecedent system, the F-16 C/D. Costs for support equipment replacement, modifications, and indirect costs were removed from the F-35’s cost per flying hour since they were not available for the F-16 C/D.

Officials calculated that the revised cost per flying hour for the F-35 was $23,557 (fiscal year 2002 dollars), or 43 percent higher, after including the excluded costs, projecting for future cost growth above inflation, and correcting the number of aircraft. However, they noted that the total O&S life-cycle cost reported in the SAR for the F-35 was accurate because it was calculated separately from the average cost per flying hour."

The United States Air Force, the alleged biggest buyer of the F-35 now figures that the jet could cost $35,500 per flying hour.

So the NACC used an F-35 cost per flying hour assumption that is just a little bit less than the F-16 SAR or a significant amount more than the Jane's F-16 figure.

If Jane's is right, the F-35 is 3 times more expensive per flying hour than an F-16. If the U.S. SAR is right, the F-35 is 50pc more expensive to fly than an F-16.

Interesting as Lockheed Martin was claiming in their briefings (for years to all the faithful) that the F-35 would cost 20pc less to operate and sustain than an F-16.

With that, the lack of real F-35 operational test data in real squadrons means there are still a lot of question marks. I would not think that the claim of the F-35 being the same or cheaper to operate than “legacy” aircraft is anything other than a deception.

How the RAAF is supposed to make annual flying budget end's meet with today's dollars in an environment which will see a lot less money in the coming years is anyone's guess.

Until then, the NACC will recommend Australia stay the course with the F-35.

Predicted O and S funding for Dutch F-35 on the rise

Things may be "going forward" with the F-35 and the Dutch but paying to own and operate a jet that has no credible operational test done still begs questions.

The Dutch have discovered a significant rise in predicted operating costs:




H/T-JSFnews, and SR

More misleading statements by LM on F-35 unit cost

It keeps coming up every now and then. The DOD F-35 project office even asked LockMart to stop public statements about F-35 unit costs that were insanely low that are now, at this juncture; fantasy.

He said labor costs were coming down faster on the F-35 program than any previous fighter jet program in over 40 years. Lockheed is on track to hit its target unit "flyaway" cost, excluding development, of $67 million in fiscal 2012 dollars by 2018, he added.

TR-2 hardware and Block 3 software has to actually work in a go-to-war configuration by that time.

Also, what is sad about this article is that a reporter that has been on the F-35 beat for a while, refuses to actively challenge such nonsense other than some occasional weak efforts. Not really reporting.

The alleged biggest buyer of the F-35, the USAF, has significant issues trying to afford the F-35. Note: R&D dollars not counted. It is doubtful that $67M will buy you even the roll-away price without a motor.

In the end, more evidence to log in the area of RICO statute and the Ponzi scheme Thana-marking fraud-like behavior associated with the marking of the Just So Farcical.

Rent-seeker alert

(Houston tells the board a really big fish story)

A lease/rental of U.S. Virginia-class nuke subs may be goofy. On the flip side of that coin we have a rent-seeking orgnisation that will do anything to sling mud at the idea of buying good, existing, off-the-shelf conventional subs to get a capability up now with a long and steady path of crew tribal knowledge.

And, little mention of fixing the DMO.

Here are two worrying points all in one short paragraph:

Speaking after being appointed to the South Australian government's Defence SA advisory board, Air Chief Marshal Houston said building the 12-boat strong future submarine fleet was critical to sustaining Australia's defence industry.

Good post-retirement work if you can get it.

In 2002, the then Air Vice-Marshall Houston stated that the F-35 would be affordable because there were 3000 jets on the order-book.

No such "order-book" existed.

The federal budget is billions in debt due to a spend-thrift government. No amount of crying about cost being less important than some questionable military spending project will matter because there isn't any money.

Cry for help: The Pentagon has no clue how to make the F-35 affordable and sustainable

(from a long time ago)




LOL--

Solicitation Number:
N00019-13-R-0012
Notice Type:
Combined Synopsis/Solicitation
Synopsis:
Added: Oct 19, 2012 11:45 am
The Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, Patuxent River, MD intends to negotiate on a non-competitive basis with A.T. Kearney Public Sector and Defense Services, LLC., 1300 Wilson Blvd, Ste.1050, Arlington, VA 22209 for Sustainment Business Case Analysis (BCA) and Affordability Program Support, Phase II for the F-35 Joint Program Office (JPO). The period of performance for this contract is estimated to be nine (9) months from date of award.

** Note: This synopsis is an amendment to the previous (N00019-12-R-0084) that was issued on January 23, 2012.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program Office (JSFPO) has completed Phase I of the JSF Sustainment Business Case Analysis (BCA) and Affordability Program, and plans to complete Phase II in the next nine (9) months. Phase I included deep dives of four (4) functional areas, including Supply Chain Management (SCM), Sustaining Engineering, Field Support Operations, and Fleet Management. Phase II will address other high priority areas not included in Phase I and complete the F-35 Sustainment Strategy Analysis. It also includes deep dives of the following additional functional areas: Autonomic Logistics Information Systems (ALIS), Training, Support Equipment, Depot Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul & Upgrade (MRO&U) Planning, Software, and Eglin Contractor Logistics Support (CLS) Maintenance not addressed in Phase I. Provide support to the Phase I implementation in order to provide continuity between BCA recommended changes and development and execution of required changes in people, processes and systems to achieve a new sustainment strategy.

A.T. Kearney has completed the support services for this requirement. It is in the Government's best interest to issue a new contract to A.T. Kearney for a continuation of services.

Responses must be received within 15 days of publication of this notice. Any responses should reference the solicitation number N00019-13-R-0012. The point of contact is Ms. Lisa Ellis, email: lisa.ellis@jsf.mil, or Ms. Emily Bannan, email: Emily.Bannan@jsf.mil

Blogging update...

Blogging may be light over the next few days; as it has the past few days.

Lots of work related stuff to do. Will be back up toward the end of next week.

Until then read up this ASPI blog piece:

Air combat – where to from here?

And this AV Week blog post from Bill Sweetman on understanding the F-35 industry inspired fan-base.

Wrongheaded? Really?

Certainly they are an interesting comparison of the state of the state of the F-35.

As an aside: great photo.



Although this little tip would make it better. When shooting photos from bubble canopy jets, it is good to have a large black foam doughnut around your camera lens. It is easy to fold up and stow for the non-photo-shoot part of the hop. You can make them out of black packing foam. Using this gets rid of the canopy reflections.