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.

ADF cost per flying hour.

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ADF helicopter community reporting of flight safety events brought into question

Rarely do I comment on safety-of-flight issues as I have spent time supporting accident investigation teams and sometimes things are not always as they seem. However this caught my eye in today's The Australian in regard to an ADF CH-47 mishap in Afghanistan:

“There have been attempts, of course, to fix the system, but in fact the systematic failures within army aviation have continued.”

Wing Commander Jonas criticised the practice in Afghanistan of recording problems with the Chinook helicopter in an incident book without sending the problems up the chain of command and notifying superiors in Australia.

“There could have been amply qualified individuals in Australia ... that could have gone 'ping, there is a problem that needs addressing',” he said.

“What happened in Afghanistan, stayed in Afghanistan.

“The command chain needs to address this.”

Expensive flying machines

Expensive.

Here is a look at some of the costs associated with flying in the ADF.

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Via this report by ASPI.

STOL ops...PNG

Thanks for everyone taking the time to comment on the C-27 post.

Relax a bit and enjoy this fun flying video.

About Canada, the F-35 and drag chutes

Drag chutes have been brought up again for the Canadian F-35 decision.

Besides the insult in the comment at the end of David's post by a nameless-coward-internet-troll let us look at some of the issues of a drag chute re: Canada and the F-35.

The briefing at the bottom of this post is the U.S. approved Lockheed Martin sales effort to Norway in 2008.

Spoiler alert:

Besides a whole bunch of unproven and misleading claims notice in the “notional” Block 4 specification: “Unique Norwegian Requirements—Icy runway capability—drag chute option.”

Chutes are not used just for icy runways. They are sometimes associated with aircraft that actually needed them as a normal part of landing because they have high approach speeds. Besides helping to shorten landing roll-outs, chutes also mean less wear on the wheel brakes. For example, the Lockheed CF-104: a single engine fighter--of which Canada lost over half of its inventory--(hint, they didn't crash as a result of enemy fire)--used a drag chute for every landing. Same for the F-105. The F-4 used a chute. Although it could have a slightly slower approach speed than an F-105 or CF-104 depending on a number of conditions. The CF-18 can get away with not using a chute in its basic design because it has a slower approach speed. Ditto with the Super Hornet.

Which makes some of the alarmist language from the “expert” in David's post sound a bit strange.

ALL runways in the interior have sufficient length and design so as to not require a drag chute, and why one is NOT on any F 35 version or any other modern fighter.

This is a modern fighter aircraft. "Combat proven" by MacKay's standards. What is that behind it?

Interesting to note: many F-16 operators did not use a drag chute.

Norway does.

The Royal Norwegian Air Force was the first air force to incorporate the drag chute, mainly to shorten the landing run on icy runways during our long and cold winters. As my colleagues in the RNoAF use the chute on practically every landing.

Canada does not have the number of long runways as the U.S. Also the F-35 has not been tested out in a variety of operationally relevant combat loadings. Weather/wind, the weight of the aircraft, altitude of the runway, temperature and the condition of the runway will determine how Canada decides to use a drag chute with the F-35; if it ever shows up. All of this will be clarified in writing in a procedure.

Given the huge expense of each aircraft, having a drag chute option probably is not a bad idea. Or, Canada can select the STOVL F-35B. It can do a short rolling landing or a vertical landing.

At over twice the price of a Super Hornet.