Late F-35 LRIP-3

Many of the trade press are happy to report low-rate-initial production lot 3 (aka LRIP-3) F-35 deliveries.

The aircraft, delivered since June 29, were the first jets manufactured as part of Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) Lot 3.

Yet not mentioned is that these deliveries are well behind as one of the LRIP-3 DOD contracts announced in 2009 indicates.

Lockheed Martin Corp., Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., Fort Worth, Texas, is being awarded a $2,106,525,040 modification to definitize the previously awarded Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) air system low rate initial production Lot III advance acquisition contract (N00019-08-C-0028) to a cost-plus-incentive-fee/award-fee contract. This modification provides for the procurement of 7 Air Force conventional take off and landing (CTOL), 7 Marine Corps short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL); 1 CTOL for the Netherlands, and 2 STOVLs for the United Kingdom. In addition, this modification provides for the associated ancillary mission equipment and technical/financial data. Work will be performed in Fort Worth, Texas, (35 percent); El Segundo, Calif., (25 percent); Warton, United Kingdom, (20 percent); Orlando, Fla., (10 percent); Nashua, N.H., (5 percent); and Baltimore, Md., (5 percent), and is expected to be completed in Dec. 2011.

March 2013 is when work for LRIP-4 is to be complete...

Bunker mentality

Lockheed CEO Stevens: F-35 production processes improved during strike

Since the program's earliest days the F-35, as with any new aircraft production program, has been plagued with parts shortages, defective parts and components, rework required and in many cases parts that required re-design. Planes are assembled with missing parts or with parts that have to go back and be replaced.

Suppliers struggling to meet deadlines are forced to cope with re-designed parts or to solve technical and reliability problems at their level. All of these factors, many of which stem from overly optimistic assumptions years ago, have added to the delays and rising costs of the F-35 program.

Ripping off a Dennis Miller Twitter post from earlier in the day and converting it: I sometimes feel that Robert Stevens has been sent from the heavens with his robo-aide Gort to rid the planet of the concept of caveat emptor.

F-35 electronic warfare capability affected by production quality

The Senate is concerned about the F-35s electronic warfare ability in relation to production quality affecting apertures on the airframe, Reuters reports.

Apertures are a tough thing to design for stealth aircraft. The aircraft has to be stealthy, yet let antennas and radar detectors peak through the skin without creating adverse radar concerns.

The F-35 has 10 apertures that pertain to radar detection as can be seen from this graphic.



As a comparison, the F-22--sometimes described as an antenna farm--has around 30 apertures on the airframe.

Production quality has nagged the F-35 program even while proponents complain more aircraft need to be built per year. The problem with building a higher quantity of F-35s is that what is currently being built are "mistake-jets" because of production knowledge immaturity.

The electronic warfare concern may have been one of the classified issues mentioned in last years DOD "quick-look" report" pointing to a variety of F-35 troubles.

Electronic warfare is an interesting term with the F-35. It has no wide field of view self-defense jamming equipment. One of the assumptions is that the narrow-band and narrow field of view radar in the nose will perform some jamming functions. Due to the cooling issues and sustained power with AESA radars, this is probably not a very reliable function. The aircraft will have narrow-band, mostly nose-on low-observable capability and some expendable decoys. A towed decoy--combat proven in ALLIED FORCE 1999--is not expected until Block 4. Whenever that happens.

A paper on predicted F-35 survivability can be read here.

2 more F-35s for LRIP-5

The DOD has ordered two more low-rate-initial-production (LRIP) batch 5, F-35 aircraft. One is an A, the other a C. The contract for their engines is still pending.

Here is what LRIP-5 looks like so far:

LRIP-5 DOD contract cost summary. $6595.4M and counting !

Date	Contract	Cost ($M) USD
10May10	Long-lead, eng (42)	138.8
6Jul10	Long-lead (42)	522.5
9Dec11	Airframes (30)	4012.0
27Dec11	Engines	1122.0
27Dec11	Non-recurring requirements	485.0
13Mar12	Sustainment	56.3
13Apr12	Airframes (2)	258.8
?	Engines (2).....?	?
Total		6595.4

Build and test was 'miscalculation,' DOD F-35 boss says production must slow

The head of the DOD F-35 program has stated production of the F-35 must slow down.

The reasons are those that the critics have already mentioned for years: the concurrency built into the original F-35 business plan is just too much to handle.

The original F-35 business plan is officially…officially dead.

Richard Whittle over at AOL Defense has the breaking story. Read all of it.

For some of us, the idea that the F-35 program had troubles with hair on them is not news.

What is news is that somebody with responsibility is starting to tell it like it is.

In my opinion Admiral Venlet still has some work to do. For instance: understanding that even as- delivered, the F-35 doesn’t bring enough for real U.S. tac-air value. However, I understand he is also a prisoner of the DOD project management system.

History of F-35 Production Cuts

click image to make larger