Dead business plan goes zombie

The F-35 business plan (build thousands-assume no engineering management goofs) was marked as unrealistic by the last DOD F-35 program boss, Admiral Venlet. Some of us knew the business plan was, to be kind, over-optimistic.


(From 2003. It's dead Jim.)


Bad business plans can't be papered over. The truth comes out no matter if some want to hear it or not.

LM stated the other day things were gaining ground on the F-35 program. The lie of the $67M unit cost was "reported" by "journalists" with no follow up.

Years ago, LRIP-5 was supposed to be 120 jets. Today? hard to say; the contract isn't signed off on yet. Somewhere around 30-40-some; if the program is lucky.

Now we have additional news--again confirming what some of us already knew--alerting the faithful that the F-35 business plan is in trouble and if LM doesn't get some more cash for LRIP-6...by the end of the year...the company will hold over $1B in risk.

Big companies don't hold risk, they shed it. I suspect that since we are in a lame-duck Congress, LM won't see their money and, at some point, that big production line without big production orders, will be converted to something much smaller. And that assumes the large amount of technical difficulties don't get worse. All to build an aircraft ready to fight ALLIED FORCE 1999, which may be deployed for active service 20 or more years later.

More: someone who has been reporting what can only be unnamed sources, floats the idea that the Navy could ditch the F-35C. Big Navy has big grey floaty things to pay for which ignore the history of the Prince of Wales and Repulse.

So if the Navy kills the F-35C, that is less motor orders, less part orders, less of everything and...the death spiral of what was supposed to be a "model acquisition program", continues.

SME's (and their overly optimistic business plans), all the way up to the prime contractor, are in trouble.

Confidential Dutch plan cuts F-16s to 42, closes one base, to prepare for high F-35 costs

The Dutch are committed to the F-35 program. So much so that political parties backing the effort are attempting to keep a confidential plan quiet until after the September 2012 elections which will see F-16 numbers cut from 68 to 42 and the closing of Airbase Leeuwarden, according to JSF News.

The justification for this plan is to address predicted (and known) high F-35 procurement and operating costs. The time-frame for the plan is between 2014-2016.

The original memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Dutch government and the U.S. Joint Strike Fighter project office projected a procurement of 85 F-35s. With the significant rise in F-35 costs, delay, technical problems and high operating costs, it is possible that 42 will be seen as the number of aircraft needed to replace the F-16s.

A 2007 Lockheed Martin briefing to Israel stated that the F-35 procurement price would be the same as an F-16 and that operating costs would be 20 percent less than an F-16. A variety of recent studies inside and outside of the U.S. Department of Defence do not back up that claim and show much higher procurement and operating costs.

It is expected that Dutch government officials will respond to this as being only a plan or a study and that the ministry of defence will state that it will let the decision rest with the next cabinet period. However, charges that Dutch F-35 advocates have something to hide with the F-16 replacement plan which is a hot-button election issue will be hard to avoid.

Risks for JSF Partner Nations are rising. TR2 hardware--needed to drive Block III software--does not arrive on production aircraft until sometime around 2016 if not later. Software challenges are large. There is no credible production learning curve for the F-35 because there are still so many unknowns. Significant technical problems remain to be solved.

No fully tested and sound go-to-war example of the F-35 is expected until the 2018-2020 time-frame at the earliest.

The long delayed flying training for student pilots has not started at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida because the F-35 is not certified as safe to fly for such an effort. Currently, high-hour test pilots--flying an extremely limited training envelop--are attempting to come up with a process which will allow new F-35 pilots to fly the aircraft safely.

Independent analysts predict that, by design, the F-35 will not be able to take on emerging air power threats and that, as delivered, it will be obsolete.