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

ADF cost per flying hour.

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Marine-Air fast jet community is too expensive

The USMC-air will have to find a way to be thrifty in the coming hard budget times. Something that they used to have a history of doing when flying a very effective close air support aircraft, the A-4.

The A-4 was carrier capable. Today, for the kinds of wars the USMC has been fighting (Afghanistan) it would be good enough, thrifty and manageable once the threat was realized. It would be more survivable compared to its past with the ability to stand off some with precision guided weapons such as JDAM backed up by the LITENING pod along with modern avionics and defensive gear.

Leaving of course, advanced IADS for someone else to solve. The same idea which will have to be used with the F-35.

The A-4 was simple and always left the deck with guns. It was also not too expensive to lose.

Today, USMC-air is still stuck on the bad theory of STOVL fast jets. If the U.S. had a war and STOVL jets were not involved, no one would miss the hyped "capability". Recently, STOVL Harriers have been flying from very long hard runways. That is a pretty expensive pet-theory to support.

Look at the cost comparison of the "expensive" per-flying-hour costs of the USMC AV-8B Harrier on past deployments.

We will use a cost per flying hour of $18,900.


Scenario 1: VMA-513, 2002-3 Afghanistan deployment; 3763 flying hours for a total of $71M.

Scenario 2: VMA-513, 2006 Afghanistan deployment; 4519 flying hours for a total of $85M.

Scenario 3: VMA-231, 2003 Iraq deployment; 5158 flying hours for a total of $97M.

So how much would the F-35B STOVL cost per flying hour in these deployment scenarios? Well, it is expected that the F-35A conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) variant will cost $35,500 per flying hour. The USMC F-35B could be more expensive per flying hour given its complexity and unique STOVL appliances. So a comparison will not be perfect. However consider the follwing:

Scenario 1: AV-8B/$71M, F-35B/$136M
Scenario 2: AV-8B/$85M, F-35B/$160M
Scenario 3: AV-8B/$97M, F-35B/$183M

That is a lot of gold-plating for a defective F-35 when comparing it to a faulty pet-theory of alleged value such as the AV-8B.

I would hope at sometime, the DOD can rationalize its tacair portfolio, because the United States federal budget is in a $16T cruise-climb powered by red ink.

Canada slow to wake up to the lie

Interesting how long information like this takes to reach the Canadian media (it isn't winter).

Telling us all something we already knew. That is, that the F-35 was never going to be cheaper to operate than legacy aircraft. Even though (for years) F-35 sales brief specifically stated that an F-35 would be cheaper to own and operate than a legacy F-18 and legacy F-16.

The U.S. Government figures the F-35 cost per flying hour as follows:

F-35A = $35,200
F-35B = $38,400
F-35C = $36,300

I hope this doesn't get in the way of any media outlets losing ad-sales dollars:

Another look at DND's faulty cost estimates with the F-35

Back so long ago in 2010, the DND was confident of their position of replacing the CF-18 Hornets with a great and risky unknown F-35. This is possible when you bury figures and use talking points from the seller of the aircraft.

Consider this collection of bizarre thinking:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay last month told the House of Commons defence committee that the air force expected to spend $250 million a year — or about $5 billion over 20 years — on the maintenance deal. That's lower than some of the federal government's initial projections, and is what the air force currently spends to keep the existing fleet of CF-18s in the air.

Officials within the department say they expect to achieve savings because the stealth fighters' support arrangement will see all countries pool spare parts.

"We hope it is more efficient because you can leverage the global supply chain of 3,000 fighters in nine countries," said the official.

"Instead of (us) having to buy 10 sets of extra sets of spare landing gear, (we) can have one set and the global pool has nine and (we) get when (we) need it, but if (we) never need it (we) don't actually have to buy it."

What 3000 fighters?

What nine countries?

Unfortunately, the F-35 is so immature that few know what parts on it will break and at what intervals.

Cost per hour for the F-35 is unlikely to be that of a classic Hornet. They are around $18,000 per flying hour give or take. The F-35 (according to U.S. Navy figures and others) is about $30,000 per flying hour. Probably even more.

At $30,000 per flying hour, MacKay's figures give us about 128 hours per F-35 per year. This is unrealistic. A pilot probably needs 180 flying hours per year as a minimum. Simulators can only do so much. The F-35 (if its capability is to be believed) will be flying longer missions than a Hornet. So add some more there.

Then, all that, only gets you one pilot per jet.

Why are higher pilot numbers to airframes needed? Because of fatigue of sustained flying ops in wartime. Even to sustain real-world operations for a few days requires 2 pilots per jet. 3 per jet for a long war would be better.

Canada has trouble meeting its one pilot per jet numbers. So, maybe, if one wants to park those gold-plated and defective F-35s alot, 128 hours per jet might happen. This cascades. Because with such an overly expensive capability, even if you have a proper number of pilots, the taxpayer can't afford to train two pilots per jet let alone one.

Yes it should be written. 2 pilots per each jet. 2 pilots x 180 hours per year = 360 hours per jet per year.

Oh, and $65M, $70M or $75M to procure each jet has zero hope of ever happening.

The DND really goofed the CF-18 replacement.

All the sudden, anything else for a CF-18 replacement is starting to look good.

The faulty F-35A cost per flying hour is unsustainable

AOL Defense is taking a look at the latest DOD select acquisition report for the F-35.

They are reporting that it will cost $35,200 per flying hour for the F-35A CTOL (the most common variant). Or in other words, the annual take-home pay of many Americans.

Burned up.

Every hour. For no valid return in credible combat capability.

Curious because years ago, in order to generate interest with a gullible U.S. military and Congress, the then JSF program had to show how great the jet would be using less operations and sustainment dollars than existing strike-fighters.

A tall order.

A look back 10 years to the 2002 SAR offers some illumination. What did the sales-force do in order to convince everyone that the F-35 was cheap to operate for such incredible (imagined) capability? Their projections cut the manpower required to run an F-35A squadron by two-fifths compared to a USAF F-16 squadron. Not figured in was that a heavy aircraft with a really big engine would burn more fuel per hour.

The comparison also did not take into account that a stealth aircraft, with more complexity, would cost more to operate. Or, they figured it and decided it didn't count because the numbers were inconvenient to the cause.

Observe the 2002 F-35 SAR predictions for the F-35A cost per flying hour compared to the recent SAR reported by AOL Defense.

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$9145 per flying hour vs. $35,200 per flying hour. Even when counting in the FY2002 baseline dollars to today's money, that is a big difference.

On a different note, the 2002 SAR shows the Navy (including USMC) as ordering their last F-35 to complete the program of record by the year 2021. That would be 690 F-35B&C aircraft.

Also according to the 2002 SAR, the USAF F-35 program of record would have ordered their last jet for a total of 1763 in 2026.

The latest meme out there is that this will be a program of sustainment spanning over 50 years.

Early SARS also stressed that the F-35 program was to be "affordable" as a reason to exist.

With what we know now, we can see nothing in the F-35 program is affordable. There is also enough information available to challenge the assumptions by the faithful that the F-35 has combat worth.

The program has failed. It is time for some adult supervision to recognize this fact. This extravagant program must end.