Posted on 12/01/2010 7:21:09 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
- The Pentagon's chief arms buyer on Wednesday said he is "not happy" with the current state of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter program and is working with company officials to lower costs.
"We have to get costs under control," U.S. Defense Undersecretary Ashton Carter said, adding that prospects for flat overall defense budgets were putting increased pressure on the department to make its weapons programs more affordable.
"I'm not happy with the situation we're in now," Carter told an investment conference sponsored by Credit Suisse and Aviation Week, when asked about the Lockheed fighter.
He said the new radar-evading fighters were initially slated to cost $50 million a piece, but cost growth was threatening to drive the price to around $92 million -- a level the Pentagon could not afford.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Lockheed Martin is the Goldman Sachs of the defense industry.
Crappy, corrupt, expensive and evil union labor on the defense factories production line.
Well, I guess we share something in common. I’m just sick about the costs as well.
You have to blame the White House,Pentagon and Congress by turning this project into a game. No ones hands are clean on the building of this plane
Of all the govermental run-away costs ... this is the most insignificant, yet most important issue they have to deal with.
What about Medical care, bailing out the EU, TARP1 and TARP2 - heck, just the money they have LOST so far this year would have gotten us every jet we could possibly need.
You have to blame the White House,Pentagon and Congress by turning this project into a game.
Are you implying that there are any projects that aren’t this way?
Not to this extent. Planes were to have started production 5 years ago.
This is just one defense program. It’s rampant throughout DoD and our military and the taxpayers deserve better.
Those others areas you mentioned are clearly also a mess.
******* “What about Medical care, bailing out the EU, TARP1 and TARP2 - heck, just the money they have LOST so far this year would have gotten us every jet we could possibly need.” *****
If we just cut down Presidential Vacations to say about 100 per year we could probably get every Jet we need and a Submarine or two as well.
TT
RICK BAKER (Vice President, Tactical Aircraft, Lockheed Martin): In essence what it was is...we were writing checks without going back into the check register is what it amounted to.
MICHAEL HOUGH: Lockheed, yes, had a problem in the subcontractor management business in their manufacturing end at Palmdale. It wasn't discovered until late, very unfortunate, very disappointing. And the lesson there is, "Take nothing for granted."
NARRATOR: It's a make or break point in the program. Under a powerful escape clause, the government can end the competition and award the fighter contract to Boeing. In the first real test of the military's commitment to fiscal limits, the JSF lets Lockheed off the hook. They're saved by the growing number of international customers now lining up to buy the Joint Strike Fighter.
MICHAEL HOUGH: We've got Canadians, we've got Italians, we've got Danes, we've got Dutch. We've got a little bit of everybody. It ensures that for tomorrow, in coalition warfare, we've got partners with the same capability to fight the same wars as we do.
NARRATOR: Ending the competition early would be a domestic and diplomatic debacle.
JAY MILLER: The government realizes that this program is so big, and so influential on a national, and in fact an international level, that their best bet is effectively to sweep this anomaly under the carpet. Let's forget about it, and let's move on, and let's work under the assumption that Lockheed has learned a lesson and they won't let this happen again.
MICHAEL HOUGH: Well, as disappointing as that was, the silver lining there is that we're doing business a lot, lot better and we'll continue for the future.
NARRATOR: In the end, Lockheed gets slapped on the wrist for bad budget controls and presses on with the program, nearly a year and a half behind schedule.
Ping
$50 million eh? Obviously that’s a barebones price, but for comparison, the latest 4th gen jets sell for $100 mill and up...yes that includes things like simulators, training and spare parts, but my point is $50 mill seems unrealistically low.
I agree
Anyone besides China “happy” with Lockheed F-35 fighter costs?
Fire the unions and get on with the program.
As broke American taxpayers try to figure out how to afford Christmas...............
The Program Managers at the Pentagon see how many F-35s they can get...... and decide where to go on vacation this year.
Meanwhile.... Lockheed Martin executives plan a huge Christmas party for the staff...... To celebrate......
the successes of the F-35 program.
Now, for the more ironic similarity. The cost of the SeaWolf vs the 'cheaper' Virginia, and the cost of the Raptor vs the 'cheaper' F-35. The Virginia's were supposed to be cheaper by a good margin than the SeaWolf, but guess what ...that's not exactly the case (and it is not due to inflation only). The JSF is supposed to be less expensive per plane than the Raptor (and note we are comparing against the price of only 183 Raptors - costs per plane would be less if the original number was under consideration, or even the last pre-183/187 number of 277 planes), but with the way the costs of the F-35 keep piling what may easily happen may be that, while the F-35 may not cost as much as a Raptor per plane, the costs will be close enough that the USAF should have gotten more examples of the MUCH more capable Raptor.
This is something an old FReeper with a military background called PukinDog (who left during the great purge wars that marked a silly time on FR) used to say. He called the JSF a dog a LONG time ago, and stated for example that the F-35B (the one with the STOVL ability) would be too overweight and may very well get cancelled. This was YEARS ago.
Anyways, what might happen is that the F-35 will have a unit cost that, while not as high as the Raptor's, will be very high. High enough that it would have made more sense to have at least 350 Raptors (which would have further lowered the unit price of the Raptor to conceivably below whatever the F-35 will cost ...some of the cost estimates for the F-35, like the US$50m, are too low, while some others are frighteningly high).
Careful with that sort of FUD, lest you draw the wrath of the mighty Defender of the Marine Corps F-35B, who shall remain unnamed.
The problem with the F-22 is that while it is a very capable dogfighter and can put on quite the aerial display at the annual base Open House, it is literally decades behind the F-35 in sensor integration.
L-M has taken so long to get Raptor production sorted out that its avionics are woefully outdated. For example, the F-22 does not have any sort of helmet mounted cueing system, so it cannot effectively exploit the high off boresight abilities of the AIM-9X. It has no infrared search and track. And half of the fleet of 186 (the new final count after the recent loss in Alaska) have system wiring built to an earlier standard that will not be able to be configured to the latest block of mission software untill they are rebuilt in a future SLEP program. (See The F-22 Can't Do What?)
The F-35's problem, on the other hand, is that while it does have a state of the art sensor sysem onboard, including a 360° infrared search and track, and what amounts to a SNIPER laser designator pod built into the aircraft (EOTS), it's aerial performance is very lacking.
High wing loading and a lack of thrust vectoring means poor turning performance, a low top speed, slow acceleration, and a questionable loiter. A further knock on the F-35 is that its AESA radar antenna is much smaller than the F-22s, with far fewer TR modules, so it is more limited in range and in how small a target it can acquire and track (think stealthy cruise missiles.) A large AESA radar is one of the very few areas where the F-22 outperforms the F-35.
What we need are more F-22s, updated with most of the F-35's avionics suite, and replace F-35s with more F-15Es and/or F-16C block 60s, both with AESA radars. The stealth of the F-35 is for first day of war only, and after that are supposed to be used in the unstealthy mode with external stores. Why have a fleet of stealthy aircraft that will be unstealthy for most of a war, instead of having a few more improved F-22s for the air dominance role and first day of war enemy air defense suppression, to be followed by a larger fleet of unstealth aircraft that are much cheaper to maintain? (We also need a wing of USAF EF-18Gs, but that is another argument...)
When you come right down to it, it is the US Navy and Marine Corps, and a handful of foreign air forces, that need the F-35 much more than the USAF needs it. Yet the affordability of the F-35 rests mainly on the vast numbers the USAF were originally to have acquired. If this doesn't happen, then as you so elequently point out with your SeaWolf example, the unit costs for the F-35 will skyrocket and nobody will buy the turkey.
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