JSF Cost Predictions Rattle Foreign Customers
Customers for Lockheed-Martin’s stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter—among them Canada, Israel, Britain and Australia—are shifting their mood from anxiety to paranoia over increasingly unpredictable costs.
Foreign analysts now expect JSF prices to significantly exceed even the latest Pentagon estimate, putting government officials in fiscal and political jeopardy as they try to craft a rational purchase plan for the fifth-generation warplane.
Adding new concern was congressional testimony by Lt. Gen. Mark Shackleford, military deputy to the assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitons, who says that ”we currently expect up to a two-year delay” in fielding the first operational unit, which shifts the date to 2018. The delay is being triggered by the most recent program restructuring.
A new report by Canada’s Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that total program costs for the country’s 65 aircraft will be U.S. $29 billion which means a total program (through-life) unit price tag of about $450 million per aircraft in Fiscal 2009 dollars.
For Israel, a long, list of unique requirements from the Israeli air force (IAF) has almost disappeared for the first 19 JSFs. Options for installing Israeli weaponry produced a staggering price tag, while plans to fit the F-35 with Israeli electronic warfare systems were rejected for both technological and political reasons.
Britain is concerned about the cost of F-35 upgrades because of problems during earlier collaborations with the U.S. In its Lockheed Martin C-130J program the U.K. was forced to closely integrate upgrade plans with the U.S., rather than allowing indigenous modifications at a lower price as it did in the earlier C-130K buy. British army officers told Aviation Week that the computerized air-drop system was flawed, making cargo recovery in Afghanistan more difficult and dangerous. With the F-35, the situation is expected to be even more extreme, says a British government official.
Australia has also been the victim of U.S. miscalculations in an earlier cutting-edge project. Its Boeing/Northrop Grumman Wedgetail surveillance aircraft is more than four years behind schedule as Canberra considers the F-35. The airborne early warning and control aircraft’s software cost and schedule problems mirror those of the F-35.
Canada’s report—“An Estimate of the Fiscal Impact of Canada’s Proposed Acquisition of the F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter”—came out March 10. The report predicts that average unit production cost for its F-35s will be $148 million with an additional $15 million for the engine, which brings the total to $163 million per aircraft. Cost estimates given to Congress last week say the fourth low-rate initial production batch, with engines, will cost $127 million per aircraft for the F-35A, $141 million for the F-35B and $158 million for the F-35C.
Lockheed Martin is reviewing details of Canada’s F-35 cost estimates. Company officials contend their estimates are based on proprietary F-35 program data and predict that each Canadian aircraft will cost $70 to 75 million when deliveries begin in 2016.
“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 Canadian report says. “Overall, F-35 development is now five years behind the schedule set at the outset of the program, and total [development] overruns are projected to exceed $21 billion, or 60% above the original goal.Unless there is compelling evidence to the contrary, it is difficult to see prices reducing to their original estimated level,” it concludes.
Recent Entries
- Free WordPress Themes for Penguin algorithm 2012
- Mazda CX9 Solar using SkyActiv technology
- How to make Browse Facebook like Pinterest using Pinview
- 2012 The Sound of Music as Woburn High’s Drama Club prepares for its annual musical production
- PlayStation 3 320GB System review
- Review Sony Vaio VCC111 Chromebook gets FCC support
- HTC Golf support by Android 4.0 operating system Ice Cream Sandwich
- New Google Play Domain-googleplayapps.com, googleplaydownloads.com and googleplaymagazines.com
- Archos ChildPad using Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and procesor 1GHz with RAM 1 GB
- Nokia 808 PureView based Symbian Nokia Belle with Carl Zeiss camera 41 megapixel.