Pentagon Factional Disputes Are A Key Driver Of F-35 Cost Increases

The Lexington Institute ^ | 11/5/2010 | Loren B. Thompson, Ph.D.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

When the Pentagon released its latest cost estimates for the tri-service F-35 joint strike fighter program, many outsiders were aghast at the projected price-tag for the planes. Everyone knew it was the defense department's biggest development program, but the per-plane costs were a good deal higher than most people were expecting. Now Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg Business News is reporting that acquisition costs could go even higher due to development delays -- only a few months after policymakers restructured the program, supposedly to put it on a more predictable, executable path. So this program must be really fouled up, right?

Wrong. The same Pentagon report that disclosed the high cost projections also stated that all three variants of the plane were meeting key performance requirements and doing well in tests. It also said no major design or engineering concerns had been identified in any of the variants. That is still the case today. Minor engineering issues arise the same way they would in any other cutting-edge technology project, and software is taking longer than expected to generate and test, just as it seems to in every other new weapons program. But the F-35 program is basically in good shape. So why is there an endless drumbeat of bad news about the program's schedule and cost?

[freedumb2003]

Because the F-35 is neither fish nor fowl. It can’t meet the mission parameters heaped upon it by all the competing interests and it lost a generation.

The new generation F-16s and F-18s meet and exceed the parameters needed for their respective roles. The F-35 is sort of holding the bag as a great idea that could never be.

It isn’t air superiority, it isn’t such a good MRF that it knocks off the current airframes — it is just a multi-billion dollar “hey! what if we..” like the old HP commercials.

[Irenic]

Maybe if we took Michelle and Obamas vacation piggy-bank, would that help fund any of this?

[J Edgar]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this similar to McNamara's F-111 experience?

[biff]

Yep, the MkII version of the same idea.

[freedumb2003]

>>Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this similar to McNamara’s F-111 experience?<<

You got me on that one.

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

Yes

[Waco]

These planes will NOT be allowed to be put to use defending us taxpayers, Washington wants to get several million of us killed off. While they kowtow to the muzzies and illegal visitors. Wash. is our biggest enemy.

[Bender2]

Re: ...isn't this similar to McNamara's F-111 experience?

Bingo! Give that man... a cigar!

And the F-111 became a great bombing platform and to a lesser extent, an electronic warfare aircraft but it was never was a carrier deployed one. When you try to create one warbird that will please three different military services, success is never cheap nor easy.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

McNamara and his Whiz kids decided that, in the interests of efficiency and economy, a single-frame, multi-role fighter-bomber could be developed for both the USAF and USN to replace all the various types of strike aircraft that were then in service. So they compiled all of the mission requirements from both services and then handed General Dynamics a huge contract for the development of the TFX "super-fighter," hence the F-111. Needless to say, the F-111 failed miserably during tests as a strike fighter, and the Navy ended up developing the F-14 Tomcat while the Air Force maintained its fleet of F-4 Phantoms until they were superceded by F-15s and F-16s in the late 1970s. At the time, the F-111 (note the "F" designator) was considered an enormous boondoggle, representative of McNamara's penchant for coming up with good ideas on paper which were impractical or even unfeasible in real life.

As it happened, of course, the USAF adopted the F-111 as a medium bomber and it went on to a successful late Vietnam War career, and became famous when Reagan sent 22 of them on a mission to bomb Libya following the 1986 bombing of a discotheque in Berlin by Libyan terrorists.

[TalonDJ]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this similar to McNamara's F-111 experience?

Funny how people always point to the F-111 here and ignore the success of the F-4.

Things have come a long way since the F-111. Several highly successful multi-role fighters have been fielded. F-4, F-16, F-18. And several others have been successfully adapted to roles outside of their original design. Both the F-14 and F-15 were adapted for strike missions and were successful at it (The F-14 less so because it was retired right after that).

[blackie]

I really like the F-35!!