Posted on 03/25/2016 9:51:56 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The projected life of the F-35 Lightning II has been extended by six years to 2070 after the US military services tweaked the number of flight hours their fleets should log before retirement.
According to the Pentagon’s selected acquisition report (SAR), published on 25 March, the total cost of developing, building, basing, operating and maintaining 2,457 aircraft has increased by 6.8% to $1.5 trillion (2015 dollars) compared to one year ago.
The bulk of that increase is attributed to the US Air Force, which has altered the assumed number of hours that each of its conventional-variant F-35As will fly in its lifetime.
Consequently, the operational life of each jet has been extended by two years, culminating in a six-year life cycle extension from 2064 to 2070. The US Air Force added 1.3 million flight hours to its 1,763-strong fleet’s forecast, while the Navy added 300,000 to its fleet.
According to a statement by the F-35 Joint Programme Office, these adjustments have pushed the estimated operating and support (O&S) cost of the F-35 up by $45 billion in base-year 2012 dollars. “If not for these life extensions and flight hour additions, the O&S estimate would have shown a reduction of $22 billion,” the programme office says.
F-35 chief Lt Gen Christopher Bogdan is pushing for a reduction in both procurement and long-term operating cost for the F-35, and is targeting a 30% reduction in O&S costs compared to the current estimate, which stand at $1 trillion for 2,457 F-35s.
He's also pushing to reduce the cost per A-model jet “to between $80 and $85 million dollars by 2019” and those numbers are steadily declining, according to the 2015 selected acquisition report (SAR).
The flyway cost of the F-35A including the aircraft, engine and contractor fee decreased by 2% to $100.6 million (2015 dollars), whereas the F-35C declined 4.1% to $110.7 million. The short-takeoff-vertical-landing F-35B unit cost declined 2.5% to $122.9 million.
Lockheed Martin
For the first time, the Pentagon has estimated the potential savings gained through a bulk-buy or multi-year procurement of F-35 jets over annual contract types. If implemented, the US Defense Department might save $2.6 billion in aircraft procurement and another $1 billion buying Pratt & Whitney F135 engines, the SAR states.
Bogdan says the Pentagon is considering a multi-year purchase beginning in Lot 13 – fiscal year 2019 quantities. However, international partners and the foreign military sales customers are pushing for a three-year bulk buy beginning in 2018 (Lot 12), with America joining the year after in Lot 13. “This option will still result in significant cost savings,” he says in written testimony.
Lockheed and P&W have provided so-called rough order of magnitude savings and the Pentagon has also run the numbers. Rand Corporation has been hired “to substantiate the potential savings” and will report its findings shortly, according to Bogdan.
How much of that is for ‘green’ fuel? (Hopefully, none.)
How much of that is for ‘green’ fuel? (Hopefully, none.)
It makes more sense with the HTML tags intact...
At the rate we’re going, there probably won’t be a USAF by 2070.
2070? More likely obsolete by 2030.
Absolutely! Since the Eff-35’s flight hours have been revised to Zero, there’s no doubt it’ll have a long life in an Aerospace museum as an stunning example of The world’s Most expensive military jet project failure.
RE: “The projected life of the F-35 Lightning II has been extended by six years to 2070 after the US military services tweaked the number of flight hours their fleets should log before retirement.”
‘Single engine’ front line fighter jet. No thanks.
They’ll all have been shot down by Russian and Chinese ripoffs of the discontinued F-22...long before.
is this the new one they’re having tons of trouble with?
Military admits that F-35 is (bleep): http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3411043/posts
All the ways the F-35 is screwed up, according to the Pentagon’s top weapons tester: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3393690/posts
F-35: America’s “everything” fighter jet is total disaster: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3389426/posts
“‘Single engine’ front line fighter jet. No thanks.”
I’m curious, so I’ll ask. What about the F-16? Isn’t that considered a front-line fighter?
Obsolete now.
Something does not compute here.......
They’re trying to justify the horrible cost overruns by manipulating the numbers. Typical 5-sided building response.
Interesting.
Let us see.
The F-35 is not in wide spread usage. It is being supported by the contractor. No F-35 has been publically identified as a lead aircraft. And they are projecting what?
Without being in widespread usage you have no idea as to how sustained environmental conditions affect the aircraft, its maintenance support, and the people involved in the program. Many interesting stories in B-52s about an alert facility. Being maintained by “blue suiters” is totally different than being maintained by contractor personnel. Saw that up close and personally when my squadron was sent from Thailand to the CONUS in 1976. Every aircraft type must have a “lead aircraft’ one that is flown harder and more often than any other tail number. It is the only way to accurately identify medium and long term maintenance issues. It is also the only way to identify accurate wartime support requirements.
The F-35 is too new to have done any of these things. Guess the program needed some good PR and it got it. Good luck future F-35 troops.
They might have some of the bugs worked out by 2070.
Easy to extend the service life when you don’t start service.
What a piece of junk.
What a farce.
Extend the life out to 2250 and that will really cutdown the development costs spread out on “per year” basis.
It should last forever if it is never ready for use. I think they are going to wear it out testing though.
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