Canada Expects Much Higher JSF Unit Costs
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, predicted by the U.S. Navy to cost about $132 million each, could escalate to $450 million per aircraft for the newly truncated Canadian fleet of 65 stealthy fighters if new cost calculations from Canada’s Office of the Parliamentary Budget Office are correct.
The office estimates that the total program cost will be $29 billion. “It is not immediately obvious, given the available evidence, how the cost can be reduced to estimates predicted by Lockheed Martin over 10 years ago,” the report says.
Titled “An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada’s Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter,” the report came out Thursday. The most recent Selected Acquisition Report published by the U.S. Defense Department shows an average unit production cost of $91 million per aircraft. Navy analysts predict an average unit cost of $128 million.
“Unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary, it is difficult to see prices reducing to their original estimated level,” the report says.
Other U.S. allies also are expressing discontent at the unexpected costs of buying into cutting-edge U.S. technology. A senior Royal Australian Air Force officer with insight into the Wedgetail Airborne Early Warning Control aircraft, a Boeing 737-derivative airframe with a Northrop Grumman L-band active electronically scanned radar, summed up that dilemma:
“It’s great kit and just what we needed, but it would have been so helpful and caused us so much less pain [with the government] if we had been told up front how big that radar was going to be [3.5 tons], how long it actually was going to take [five years over schedule] and how much it was actually going to cost [more than $4 billlion].”
The Australian Wedgetail No. 2 Sqdn. is nearing operational status and will field a six-plane fleet.
The Canadian JSF study lists a number of uncertainties that could change the cost:
• Increases in research, development, test and evaluation costs. Between 2001 and 2009, the RDTE cost is up 40% and production costs have increased 54%.
• Elimination of the alternative engine program, which would leave Canada with no competitive leverage to lower engine costs. The cost and quality implications of having a single engine provider are hard to predict.
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