mural design by Laser
Imaging & Design with permission
ANAers!!
*************************************
HORNET UPDATE
FIRST – the latest from Navy Leadership – this GOOD
NEWS from our Commander, Naval Air Forces, VADM Thomas
“Killer” Kilcline a couple of days ago:
“Dutch - a correction to my note that that I just
noticed as the final Red Stripe comes out. Two of the
seven F18D's requiring repairs are still in the RAG and
not in DEPOT repairs yet. As I said no Fleet jets
impacted. Killer
*************************************
This BULLHORN is in response to the many members who
have asked for more information on the F-35.
News and events of the F-35 program have been fast and
furious, some with good information, others obviously
‘searching for ink’. The collection below represents
what has been published in the last couple of weeks –
some positive, some ‘other.’ As we read the news of
the F-35, remember it is a program that is still in
testing – development continues day-to-day. We
also need bear in mind that, in some circles, bad news
‘sells’ better than any other.
Because all of this BULLHORN is F-35, it does not
contain an index and links to individual articles.
MEMBERSHIP!!!!
VR,
Dutch
NEW JSF PROGRAM DIRECTOR
March 16, 2010
Flag Officer Announcement
Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates
announced today that the President has made the
following nomination:
Navy Vice Adm. David J. Venlet has been
nominated for reappointment to the rank of vice admiral
and assignment as director, Joint Strike Fighter
program, Office of the Secretary of Defense, Arlington,
Va. Venlet is currently serving as commander, Naval Air
Systems Command, Patuxent River, Md.
GAO Warns More F-35
Cost And Schedule Hiccups Likely
(DEFENSE DAILY 22 MAR
10) ... Emelie Rutherford
Government auditors'
latest assessment of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter
program warns additional cost growth and schedule
extensions, beyond those recently unveiled, are likely.
The Government
Accountability Office's (GAO's) sixth annual F-35
report, released last Friday, reflects much but not all
of the latest cost data emerging from the Pentagon on
the effort to buy 2,443 jet fighters for the Air Force,
Navy, and Marine Corps.
The program's total
procurement cost has risen to a much as $232 billion,
in 2002 dollars, compared to $143 billion back in late
2001, according to a F-35 "unit cost report" for March
the Pentagon also released last Friday.
Pentagon officials are
planning to recertify the Lockheed Martin [LMT]
aircraft effort, a step required under the Nunn-McCurdy
statute because of cost overruns; however,
congressional aides said Congress had not been
officially notified of the Nunn-McCurdy cost breach as
of last Friday.
The F-35's
average-procurement-unit cost has risen to as high as
$95 million in 2002 dollars, a growth of up to 89
percent since the program received milestone B approval
in 2001, according to the Pentagon.
Air Force Secretary
Michael Donley will officially notify Congress of the
Nunn-McCurdy cost breach before April 1 and a required
package recertifying the F-35 as a vital program that
must continue will be sent to Capitol Hill around early
June, Pentagon officials told the Senate Armed Services
Committee (SASC) March 11.
The GAO's Michael
Sullivan, director of acquisition and sourcing
management, at that March 11 hearing previewed his
office's new report, titled "Additional Costs and
Delays Risk Not Meeting Warfighter Requirements on
Time."
The report says the
Pentagon's recent restructuring of the F-35
program--which extends its development phase and
reduces the number of production aircraft purchased in
the early years--"should improve outcomes and provide
more realistic cost and schedule estimates."
Yet it warns,
"Restructuring is not finished and further cost growth
and schedule extensions are likely."
The report cites
concerns with "substantial overlap of development,
test, and production activities while (the Defense
Department) continues to push ahead and invest in large
quantities of production aircraft before variant
designs are proven and system performance verified."
The GAO reiterates its
call for "adopting a more evolutionary, incremental
strategy that delivers proven and operationally
suitable capabilities when available, but acknowledges
that more time is needed to deliver the full
capabilities."
Multiple "testing and
technical challenges," the GAO report states, "will
likely add more costs and time to development,
affecting delivery of warfighter requirements and
hampering start up of pilot and maintainer training and
initial operational testing."
The GAO recommends
conducting a comprehensive and independent assessment
of F-35 costs and schedule that goes beyond the
analysis already done by the Pentagon's Joint
Estimating Team, Independent Manufacturing Review Team,
Joint Assessment Team, and Naval Air Systems Command.
"While the independent
cost estimate completed by the Joint Estimating Team is
a very good start, it by design focused only on the
near term," the GAO says. "Until a complete and
comprehensive cost estimate that provides cost through
completion of procurement and includes a more complete
estimate of military construction funding requirements
is formally adopted as the new program of record, JSF
program costs will remain unclear."
"Tying annual
investments more directly to demonstrated progress in
developing, testing, and manufacturing aircraft would
be a prudent fiscal measure," it adds.
The Pentagon, in
response to an draft of the new GAO report, says it
concurs with the GAO's recommendation for such a cost
and schedule estimate.
Critics: Time To Bail
On Navy JSF
Proposed Super Hornet
Buy Could Be More Than A Stopgap Solution
(NAVY TIMES 29 MAR 10)
... Andrew Tilghman
Is it the beginning of
the end for the Navy’s F-35C?
A steady string of bad
news for the Joint Strike Fighter program – which
includes the Navy’s carrier variant – has some
observers suggesting the service abandon its plans to
purchase more than 300 of the fifth-generation jets to
fill out the future fighter fleet.
The alternative:
Continue buying F/A-18E/F Super Hornets from Boeing
that have been on carrier decks for almost a decade.
“I think the Navy needs
to walk away from the F-35C based on affordability
concerns and continue with the Super Hornet,” said one
congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity
because the matter is still being intensely debated on
Capitol Hill.
Navy support for the
F-35C suffered in mid-March, when Navy Secretary Ray
Mabus said the service is open to buying more Super
Hornets. The Navy had planned to stop buying Super
Hornets in 2013 with the intention of replenishing the
fighter fleet with JSFs starting in 2014.
Mabus told
congressional lawmakers that he supports a new
multiyear contract that would bring more than 100 new
Super hornets into the fleet – and breathe new life
into a Boeing production line with an unclear future.
That came just a week
after Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told
Congress on March 11 that the Navy’s F-35C will not be
ready for operations until 2016, rather than the
previous target date of late 2014. Original plans for
about 2,000 hours of flight testing may extend to about
3,000 flight hours.
During the same week,
cost estimates for the F-35 soared. New calculations
from the Government Accountability Office say the F-35s
could cost roughly $112 million each, a large spike
from the original estimates of about $50 million per
plane in 2002.
Nevertheless, Roughead
continues to voice strong support for the F-35.
“We’re committed to
that. We’re moving forward to bring the fifth
generation onto the aircraft carriers,” Roughead told
lawmakers March 17.
Yet delays and cost
problems with the F-35Cs can arrive to replace them.
That gap could morph
into a permanent reduction in fighters if the Navy
can’t expand its budget or find a cheaper plane, said
Winslow Wheeler, a defense analyst with the Center for
Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank.
“At some point, the
Navy will have to bite the bullet and convert from the
old ‘F/A-18s-are-too-old’ argument to the argument that
the new F-35s are too expensive. I fully expect the
Navy to bail out of the F-35 program.”
Fighter gap
The Navy is already
facing a fighter gap, and experts estimate it could
rise as high as 243 planes, or about 20 percent of the
fleet, by its peak in about 2017.
Navy leader say they
need 1,240 jets to meet the demands from combatant
commanders in places like the Middle East, according to
a brief sent to Congress in February. The Navy’s
inventory is 1,180 fighter jets, according to the
brief, obtained by Navy Times.
Adding to the problem:
The wear and tear on the aging fleet of older F/A-18
A-D model Hornets was underscored again earlier in
March, when 104 planes were grounded because of cracks
found in some wing fasteners that connect the back part
of the main wing to the fuselage.
Roughead told Congress
in February about some measures the Navy will take to
reduce the fighter gap. Those include reducing the
number of planes in each undeployed squadron from 12 to
10 and speeding the transition of five Hornet Squadrons
to Super Hornets.
‘Cascade’ effects
The abrupt rise in cost
estimates for the F-35C has catapulted the fighter gap
into more long-term crisis, said James Hasik, a defense
analyst who runs his own consulting firm in Virginia.
“Before, there was talk
of a ‘gap’ that would eventually close over time. But
that presumed that they were going to get enough
F-35Cs. Now it looks like the Navy can’t fill its
carrier decks given the budgets they can possibly
foresee in the future,” Hasik said.
If the Navy is unable
to buy enough planes to fill out 10 full carrier air
wings, then the Pentagon and Congress will begin to
question the need for an 11-carrier fleet.
“That is the thing that
is underlying it all,” said Bob Dunn, a retired vice
admiral and former aviator. “The combatant commanders
need that carrier support, and they’re not going to
have it.”
A withering fighter
fleet could undermine the Navy across all communities.
“That will scare the
crap out of the admiralty,” Hasik said. “If you don’t
have all those carriers, then people say, ‘Well, why do
you have all those guided-missile cruisers if you don’t
have to guard as many carriers?’
“This is not a frigate
Navy.”
Gates Confident F-35
Program Will Stay On Track Despite Costs
(THE HILL 24 MAR 10)
... Roxana Tiron
Defense Secretary
Robert Gates told defense appropriators on Wednesday
that he was confident the troubled F-35 Joint Strike
Fighter will stay on track after the Pentagon
restructured the program.
Gates told the House
Appropriations Committee that he did not expect any
more delays or cost increases to the F-35.
The Pentagon is
expected to formally notify Congress soon that the
F-35’s cost has more than doubled.
Officials repeatedly
have said that they have restructured the program to
prevent it from derailing. They also say no other
alternative exists to the F-35—the next-generation
fighter jet for the U.S. military and several of its
allies.
“Based on everything
that I have seen, I have confidence that the range of
cost estimates and timing that is being described and
presented to me today will in fact be executed,” Gates
said on Wednesday.
Gates has fired the
previous F-35 program manager and withheld $614 million
in potential fee awards from the contractor, Lockheed
Martin, as part of the program’s restructuring.
Gates faulted the
program office for having provided “overly rosy”
forecasts.
A three-star military
officer, Vice Adm. David Venlet, has been nominated to
take over the program. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who also testified Wednesday,
called Venlet “an exceptional individual.”
Gates also expressed
frustration that one factory involved in the F-35
program was using only six percent of its floor space
for the F-35 compared to other aircraft programs.
“We're paying 70
percent of the overhead for that factory. I think we
can fix that,” Gates told lawmakers.
In his example, Gates
was not referring to Lockheed Martin, the prime
contractor for the F-35, said Geoff Morrell, the
Pentagon press secretary. Morrell said he could not
disclose the name of the factory in question, citing
proprietary concerns.
The restructured
program adds 13 months and $2.8 billion to the
development phase and slows the ramp-up to full
production. The Navy and the Air Force will begin
fully operating the F-35 in 2016. The Marine Corps
plans to start operating its version of the fighter in
December 2012.
The Air Force, Navy and
Marines each will have their own versions of the F-35.
Gates also told
lawmakers that the Pentagon is looking at a third
multiyear contract for Boeing’s F/A-18 E/F Super
Hornets. No formal decision has been made yet in terms
of accepting Boeing’s price offer for the multiyear
deal, but such a move would alleviate several
lawmakers’ concerns that the Navy and Marine Corps
would face a shortfall of fighter jets in the coming
years –particularly with the delays in the F-35
program. The Super Hornets are expected to share the
carrier decks with the F-35 until 2030.
Meanwhile, Gates and
other high-level Pentagon officials have dug in their
heels against a backup engine for the F-35 and have
offered their rationale and calculations to the defense
committees. Gates reiterated on Wednesday that he would
personally recommend that the president veto the
defense bills over the alternate engine made by General
Electric and Rolls Royce. The primary engine is built
by Pratt & Whitney.
In an updated analysis,
the Government Accountability Office found that the
Pentagon would have to spend another $62.5 billion to
cover the costs of completing the primary engine
development; the procurement of 2,443 engines and
supporting and sustaining production. An additional
investment of between $4.5 billion to $5.7 billion may
be required should the Pentagon continue competition
between the two engines, the GAO found.
“Under certain
assumptions, the additional costs of continuing the
F136 alternate engine program could be recouped if
competition were to generate approximately 10.1 to 12.6
percent savings over the life of the program,” Michael
Sullivan, GAO’s director for acquisition and sourcing
management said in prepared testimony before the House
Armed Services Air and Land Forces subcommittee.
For example, Air Force
data on the first four years of competition for engines
on the F-16 fighter jets projected they would recoup at
least that much, Sullivan said.
“Actual savings will
ultimately depend on factors such as the number of
aircraft actually purchased, the ratio of engines
awarded to each contractor, and when the competition
begins,” Sullivan said. “Competition may also provide
non-quantifiable benefits with respect to better
contractor responsiveness, technical innovation and
improved operational readiness.”
Navy Chief Optimistic
F-35 Will Enter Fleet On Schedule
(NATIONAL JOURNAL
CONGRESS DAILY) ... Megan Scully
The Navy's top officer on Tuesday expressed hope that
the aircraft carrier-based version of the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter will not have the same prolonged delays
that are plaguing the Air Force's variant of the
stealthy jet.
During an interview at the Pentagon, Chief of Naval
Operations Gary Roughead said the Navy is reviewing
recent program changes, but he believes the Navy will
benefit from being the last of the services to receive
the F-35 and, ultimately, will stick close to its 2014
date for initial operational use.
"I
think we, as a service, have the advantage in that
we're third in line," Roughead said. "And I'm not
looking at life through rose-colored glasses, but I
think we're in a better position to perhaps stay close
to our IOC [initial operational capability] because
there's a lot of work being done to keep the other
people on IOC and minimize that [delay]," he added.
As
a result of delays in the program's development, Air
Force Secretary Michael Donley has said his service's
date for initial operational use will slip from FY13 to
late calendar year 2015.
Donley said at a breakfast Tuesday that the decision to
push back the Air Force's schedule came after the
Defense Department reviewed independent estimates that
pointed to significant schedule delays and price
increases on the aircraft program.
"We're still working through all the implications of
the program adjustments going forward," he said. "That
work is ongoing."
Meanwhile, the Marine Corps, the first service to
receive the fighters, plans to stick to its 2012 date
for operational use, a spokesman said Tuesday. The
service has not modernized its fighter fleet in more
than a decade.
"We're really [eager] to have the Joint Strike Fighter
come online when it's supposed to with the capacities
that we believe it has," Marine Corps Commandant James
Conway told the Senate Armed Services Committee on
Thursday.
For FY11, the Pentagon is requesting $8.7 billion in
procurement funding to buy 43 F-35s, plus $2.3 billion
for continued research and development and $535 million
for spare parts.
All told, the three services will buy more than 2,400
F-35s to replace aging F-16s, F-18s, AV-8s and A-10s,
making the F-35 the largest program on the Pentagon's
books.
"The JSF program is going to be a program that's going
to be very, very closely scrutinized and watched and
monitored," Roughead said. "There should be no question
that we in the Navy have to get to that airplane."
As
it awaits the F-35, the Navy is trying to manage a
strike fighter shortfall, which Roughead estimates is
at about 100 aircraft.
The admiral says he plans to mitigate the shortfall by
breathing life into older F-18 Hornets through a
service-life extension program, which would add a few
years of operations to the planes. He dismissed any
efforts to buy more of the popular F/A-18E/F Super
Hornets than are now planned, saying that doing so is
simply not affordable given other budget pressures.
"I
think all too often people deal with specific
programmatic issues and you get into, 'It's only this
for that'," Roughead said. "You really do lose sight of
... where do you get that additional amount of money
and what suffers as a result of that."
But the Navy still plans to buy 66 F/A-18E/F Super
Hornets between FY10 and FY13. Those planes could
become part of a multiyear procurement deal with maker
Boeing Co. that also would include 58 EA-18G Growler
electronic attack aircraft based on the same airframe.
On
Monday, Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn asked
Congress for an extension of its March 1 deadline for a
decision on a multiyear purchase agreement for F/A-18s,
saying officials need to review the Boeing's offer to
determine if a long-term commitment is cost effective.
Roughead said he supports a multiyear pact if the
Pentagon can verify Boeing's claims that it will cut 10
percent off the costs of the jets. He also said he
expects officials to decide on the matter quickly.
"I'm of the mind that we want to get it done fast and
not to draw this out because if we're granted the
extension I don't want to abuse that consideration that
they've given us," he said.
Shift in IOCs?
- From AFA
Despite assurance from Defense Secretary Robert Gates
that the F-35 restructure would not alter initial
operational capability dates for the Marine Corps
(2012), Air Force (2013), and Navy (2014), Rep. Norm
Dicks (D-Wash.) asked Feb. 24 at the House
Appropriations defense panel hearing on combat
aircraft, "how is that" given the 13-month development
delay and slowed production? Gen. William Fraser has
said Air Combat Command is rethinking IOC and what
level of combat capability it requires. At the hearing,
Rear Adm. David Philman acknowledged the Navy believes
its IOC would slip "out towards '15, maybe later."
However, he said the Marines, "are holding to their
2012 IOC," but F-35B testing will "prove that out." A
day earlier, USAF Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz
said it would be "late in calendar year 2015" before
USAF would have "meaningful numbers," in the words of
Rep. Larry Kissell (D-N.C.).
F-35s Delayed Until
2015
(PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL
(FL) 02 MAR 10) ... Bart Jansen
WASHINGTON — The Air
Force has acknowledged that it won’t have its first
combat-ready F-35 fighters until late 2015, a two-year
delay from when the planes were expected to start
arriving at Eglin Air Force Base.
The service had hoped
to have its first versions of the fighter in place in
2013. But delays in development of the plane’s
technology prompted a 13-month slip in production that
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced Feb. 2.
In a Feb. 24 letter,
Under Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter described
delaying full production of the planes to November
2015.
In a carrot-and-stick
approach, Carter is withholding $614 million in
development fees to reward the contractor, Lockheed
Martin, if the plane is developed as expected under the
new time frame.
"2010 will be a
critical year for the program, with delivery of test
aircraft to Patuxent River and Edwards AFB, completion
of hundreds of test flights, commencement of flight
testing at Eglin AFB and other key milestones planned,"
Carter wrote to the secretaries of Air Force and Navy,
which will both use the planes.
The plane is the next
generation of fighter, which will be used by the Air
Force, Navy and Marines. Ultimately, all three branches
plan to buy 2,456 planes for $246 billion.
Under the previous
schedule, Eglin anticipated hosting 59 of the planes in
its first order and expected bringing 4,000 new
military personnel to the base when the program became
fully operational in 2016.
But the delay has
prompted concerns in Congress.
“It seems like every
year the program is slipping and slipping,” House Armed
Services Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said at a Feb. 23
hearing. “Why aren't we ahead of the game on this?”
Air Force Secretary
Michael Conley told lawmakers at that hearing that
independent estimates found that, despite steps to
reduce delays in the program from 30 months to 13
months, production would still be postponed.
“This does represent a slip in the program. It will
cost us more money to get where we need to go. But this
is the right thing to do,” Conley said. “So we have
knocked down the production ramp. We have added dollars
back in to develop to complete that work.”
Air Force: Joint Strike
Fighter Delayed, Will Cost Much More Than Once Expected
(THE HILL 02 MAR 10)
... Roxana Tiron
The high-profile F-35
Joint Strike Fighter program will be delayed by two
years and will be significantly over cost, Air Force
Secretary Michael Donley said on Tuesday.
“We think it is
probable that there will be a Nunn-McCurdy breach,”
Donley said at a breakfast with defense reporters.
The so-called
Nunn-McCurdy law requires the military services or the
Pentagon leadership to tell Congress when the price tag
of a program increases significantly. The Pentagon then
must certify to Congress that the program is still
worth pursuing.
Under a new weapons
acquisition law, Nunn-McCurdy is triggered when the
estimate of the total program cost grows by more than
25 percent or the program schedule for initial
operational capability grows by more than 25 percent.
A breach of the
Nunn-McCurdy law usually leads to a significant
restructuring of a program, or could force the Pentagon
to find an alternative to the offending program.
The F-35 is the
Pentagon’s most expensive program to date, and one that
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is banking on. The F-35
is designed to be the next-generation fighter for the
Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps.
The program, under
contract to Lockheed Martin, has suffered significant
setbacks and has been the subject of continuing reviews
by the Pentagon to tamp down delays and cost growth.
The Pentagon has been
acting “in just about every respect as if the program
were in a Nunn-McCurdy breach,” Donley said. “We’ve
been taking all the mitigating and corrective action
that we would take as if it were a Nunn-McCurdy
breach.”
Donley said the Air
Force remains “fully committed” to the program, but
that the fighter jet will become operational in 2015,
about two years later than initially planned.
Donley indicated that
the Pentagon will stick by the F-35 because there is no
other alternative and because it would be more
expensive to stop the production lines and then restart
them.
“We have not seen any
technical show-stoppers” with the F-35, Donley said.
Donley’s comments
dovetail with a memo issued last week by the Pentagon’s
top weapons buyer, Ashton Carter, and first reported by
The Hill. In the memo, Carter said the Pentagon's
review of the F-35 so far had discovered no fundamental
technology or manufacturing problems.
Carter also said a
recent independent Pentagon assessment done by the
so-called Joint Estimating Team found the development
phase of the next-generation fighter jet will slip by
13 months, not 30 as initially determined by a previous
assessment.
Carter also said the
cost of the system’s development phase will increase by
$2.8 billion. Carter directed the secretaries of the
Air Force and Navy to budget according to the new
estimate. He directed them to extend the development
phase by 13 months and move the start of the full
production phase to November 2015.
Carter also directed
the Air Force and Navy acquisition officials, as well
as the program manager for the F-35 program, to
withhold $614 million in award fees to Lockheed Martin
and revise the contract structure for the development
and demonstration phase in such a manner that Lockheed
is rewarded for “measurable progress.” Gates already
announced earlier this month that he was planning to
withhold the money from Lockheed.
“I remain convinced
that close partnership and clear accountability are
required with the JSF contractors,” Carter said in the
memo.
Donley said Tuesday
that the Pentagon is restructuring its contract with
Lockheed Martin to ensure the company sticks to its
earlier promises on the program and meets the schedule.
Also, Donley pointed
out that the new program manager for the F-35 program
would be a three-star officer and therefore would need
to be confirmed by the Senate. But Donley said he was
unclear when a new program manager would be named.
Gates decided last month to remove Marine Corps Maj.
Gen. David Heinz, who was running the F-35 program.
Because of the two-year
delay to 2015, Donley said the Air Force is considering
extending the life of the F-16 fighter jets, also made
by Lockheed, but he indicated that no final decisions
had been made.
Meanwhile, Donley held
his ground on another controversial issue: the backup
engine for the F-35, which the Pentagon does not want
but Congress has consistently funded over the past
several years. Gates said that he would personally
recommend that the president veto any defense bill that
contains funds for the alternate engine made by General
Electric and Rolls-Royce. The primary engine is built
by Pratt & Whitney.
Donley said it was a
difficult call to decide against a second engine for
the F-35, because “we know Congress wants to support
it” and because, in general, the Pentagon sees “the
value of competition.” Donley said that the Pentagon
could not see any “hard savings” later on from having
two competing engines.
“It was too fuzzy in
the out-years,” he said.
Rep. Ike Skelton
(D-Mo.), the chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee, last week blasted the Pentagon’s business
rationale for deciding to scrap the General
Electric-Rolls-Royce alternate engine. The primary
engine is built by Pratt & Whitney.
“It appears that the
department’s approach focuses on near-term costs to the
exclusion of what the committee sees as the long-term
benefits of this program,” Skelton said in a statement
Thursday. “I remain unconvinced that terminating the
alternate engine program makes sense.”
Skelton said the
Pentagon’s analysis does not consider the risk that a
single engine would present to national security
because Lockheed Martin’s F-35 will account for 95
percent of the military’s fighter fleet.
“We cannot use
near-sighted vision when long-term security is at
stake,” Skelton said in the statement.
Carter To Brief F-35
Partners On Program Changes
(DEFENSE NEWS... John
T. Bennett
U.S. defense
acquisition chief Ashton Carter will huddle March 4
with other military procurement chiefs about Pentagon
plans to restructure the multination F-35 fighter
program, a Pentagon official says.
The high-level session
will take place at prime contractor Lockheed Martin's
F-35 production facility in Fort Worth, Texas, the
official said.
During the "CEOs
conference," as two sources called it, Carter will
brief "his counterparts" from the eight nations that
are Washington's official partners on the
fifth-generation fighter effort, according to the
Pentagon official.
Lockheed Martin
spokesman Christian Geisel said the international
meeting has been on the books since last April. Such
sessions are held annually, he said.
Carter is set to
explain to the other defense procurement chiefs in
detail how the Pentagon has restructured the F-35
program, the official said. Also expected to be a part
of the agenda is how DoD intends to revamp the
program's annual budget, as well as details about
Washington's adjusted yearly buy rate.
The United Kingdom is
considered a "level one" partner on the effort, while
Italy and the Netherlands are "level two partners,"
according to a Lockheed Martin fact sheet.
Australia, Canada,
Denmark, Norway and Turkey are listed on the fact sheet
as "level three" partners," and Israel and Singapore
are "foreign military sales participants."
Senior Pentagon brass
late last year began a comprehensive relook at the
program after an internal DoD study group estimated
additional F-35 cost growth and schedule slips were
coming.
That soup-to-nuts
review, led by Carter, spanned several months and
culminated with changes to the program's budget, buy
rate and overall schedule.
The F-35 is slated to
constitute the bulk of the U.S. military's future
fighter arsenal. The U.S. Air Force, Navy and Marines
are each set to buy various models of the Lockheed-made
warplane.
Attendees will "include
Department of Defense, and U.S. industrial leaders and
the senior leadership of international partner-country
governments, militaries, and industries to receive the
latest update of F-35 program status and to address any
JSF program-related issues," Geisel said. "The attendee
list, which will include officials from the U.S.
services, "has been consistent from year to year," he
added.
"Lockheed Martin and
the JSF Program Office will present several joint
program-update briefings on a variety of topics,"
Geisel said.
U.S. Marines May Get
Some Non-STOVL F-35s
(DEFENSE NEWS 03 MAR
10) ... John Reed
The U.S. Marines may
get some carrier-borne F-35Cs with their
short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing F-35Bs, a senior
U.S. Navy aviation official said March 3.
The Marine Corps will
start flying F-35Bs from amphibious assault ships in
2012, according to a Navy official. The Navy Department
is considering giving the Corps some of the
catapult-ready F-35Cs so they can fly from aircraft
carriers. (Andy Wolfe / Lockheed Martin) The Navy
Department, which is planning to buy a total of 680
Lockheed Martin Lightning II strike fighters for the
two services, has not yet decided how many of each
variant will go to each branch, said Rear Adm. David "Deke"
Philman, the Navy staff's air warfare director.
Right now, the Marines
are to start flying F-35Bs from amphibious assault
ships in 2012, Philbin said.
Department officials
are considering giving the Corps some of the
catapult-ready F-35Cs so they can fly from aircraft
carriers, he said.
"The question of the
mix is, 'Will the Marines fly tailhook versions'" or
even B-models from conventional aircraft carriers,
Philman said during a speech in Arlington, Va.
After the speech, he
told reporters that the Navy is looking at "what is the
requirement for the Navy, what is the requirement for
the Marine Corps and how does that fit into the greater
DON [Department of the Navy] construct."
Recent trouble with the
entire F-35 program has led the sea service to
re-evaluate the planned initial operational capability
date of 2014, Philman said.
DoD Comptroller:
Further F-35 Cost Growth Jeopardizes Buy Quantity
(DEFENSE DAILY 04 MAR
10) ... Marina Malenic
Any further cost growth
in the Defense Department's marquee tactical aircraft
development program will result in cuts to the number
of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) aircraft the
department is able to purchase, the Pentagon's top
financial official said yesterday.
"I think we are to the
point in our budgetary situation where, if there is
unanticipated cost growth, we will have to accommodate
it by reducing the buy," said Undersecretary of Defense
Robert Hale, the Pentagon comptroller.
The Pentagon's program
of record has until recently called for 2,456 of the
fighters in three variants for the Air Force, Navy and
Marine Corps. Last week, top Pentagon weapons buyer
Ashton Carter authorized a restructure of the program
that reduces that number by 122 aircraft. A 13-month
extension of the development phase of the program was
also authorized.
Hale, however, said
that additional cost growth is not out of the question
and that any such growth will come out of the buy
quantity.
"I wouldn't raise my
right hand and swear that there won't be any future
cost growth," he said. "I don't see us getting a lot of
added funding, and therefore I don't see large JSF
funding increases."
He noted that officials
at Lockheed Martin [LMT], the program's prime
contractor, have said that "they can build more planes
with the money that we have budgeted than we think"
they can. "That would be great," he added.
Hale was speaking at a
Precision Strike Association conference in Arlington,
Va.
The Air Force in recent
weeks acknowledged that problems in the program mean
that the F-35 conventional take-off and landing (CTOL)
A-model likely will not be ready for deployment until
"late in calendar year 2015," significantly pushing
back the service's anticipated Fiscal Year 2013 initial
operating capability (IOC) date.
Rear Adm. David Philman,
the Navy's director of air warfare, said yesterday that
the Marine Corps is "holding to 2012" for IOC of the
short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) B-model of
the aircraft. Philman said the Navy's IOC date for the
carrier variant C-model will be "event driven" and will
depend on sufficient quantities of the aircraft with
Block 3 software being delivered and tested.
"We have on the record
2014 as our IOC, and there's no change to that, but
it's very clear that that is going to be pressurized,"
he said. "It's 2014, but that is going to have to be
addressed based on the pressures in the program."
Late last year, the
Pentagon acknowledged that its special assessment team
once again found that the F-35 program is at risk of
significant cost increases. The Joint Estimating Team's
latest cost projection for the program contains similar
numbers to last year's JET estimate. Both warn that the
$300 billion program may end up costing the government
some $16.6 billion more than budgeted.
Defense Secretary
Robert Gates last month announced an F-35 program
shake-up, with a new three-star program manager still
pending appointment. Lockheed Martin was also punished,
with the department withholding $614 million in fees.
The program is also in danger of breaching a
congressionally mandated cost-growth cap in coming
weeks.
Lockheed
Delays On F-35 Bring Lowest Fee Since 2007
(BLOOMBERG NEWS 03 MAR
10) ... Tony Capaccio
Lockheed Martin Corp.’s
latest performance fee from the government on the F-35
Joint Strike Fighter, its largest program, is the
lowest since late 2007 because of delays in production
and aircraft deliveries.
Lockheed, the world’s
largest defense contractor, earned 69.9 percent of the
available fee for the six-month period ending Oct. 31
-- $48.5 million of a potential $69.4 million,
according to Defense Department figures.
Lockheed can’t earn
back the remaining $20.9 million because it will be
used to reduce program costs, said Cheryl Limrick,
Pentagon spokeswoman for the program.
The fee for performance
is Lockheed’s only profit in the program’s development
phase, which has now been extended 13 months to
November 2015. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Feb.
1 that all fees remaining on this phase, $614 million,
will be withheld because “key goals and benchmarks were
not met.”
“The taxpayer should
not have to bear the entire burden of getting the JSF
program back on track,” he said. Some of the money will
be used to get the program back on schedule. To earn
the rest, Lockheed will have to meet revised program
targets.
The F-35 is the
military’s next-generation fighter. It is designed for
missions including bombing and air-to-air combat, and
it will be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine
Corps. It will replace aircraft including F-16s and
A-10s, as well as Harrier aircraft flown by the Marines
and the U.K.
Bethesda,
Maryland-based Lockheed’s lowest previous award was
67.3 percent in October 2007. The company earned its
highest fees -- 90 percent or more -- before 2006.
Cost Increase
The program’s projected
$298 billion cost may increase, Air Force Secretary
Michael Donley told lawmakers last week. An increase of
15 percent would force the Pentagon to review the
program and certify to Congress that it’s essential to
national security.
Donley also said the
delays mean the service won’t field its first
combat-ready unit of F-35s until 2015, two years late.
Planned delivery of the first units to the Marine Corps
in 2012 and the Navy in 2014 are still projected to be
on time.
The Pentagon -- with
prodding from Congress -- has tightened performance fee
payments since the U.S. Government Accountability
Office in a December 2005 report criticized it for
rewarding substandard performance. Gates has ordered
officials to sharpen scrutiny of weapons programs and
hold contractors more accountable.
Six Months of Delays
Lockheed’s reduced fee
came after a six-month period when production delays
led to late plane deliveries that resulted in test jets
flying only about 10 percent of their planned flights,
according to an October assessment by the Defense
Contract Management Agency and the Pentagon’s testing
office.
The agency’s monthly
reports last year are a chronicle of the woes the
program has faced:
April: “Late parts have
been extremely disruptive to assembly operations.”
May: Shortages of parts
are “resulting in a massive amount” of work that should
have been completed early in the assembly process and
is now being transferred to the final stage.
July: The test-flight
schedule, which has been extended six times since the
development program began in October 2001, “is
significantly behind” and “does not appear to be
achievable.”
Lockheed Comment
Lockheed Martin
spokesman John Kent said “production trends indicate
that we will be back on schedule during 2011.”
“Labor hours required
to complete each aircraft have dropped by half and the
time required to manufacture an F-35 has dropped by one
third,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
“Parts shortages have
gone from 300 on the first aircraft to 16 on the most
recent plane rolled out and parts availability
continues to improve as the supply chain gears up for
higher production rates,” Kent said.
Lockheed Martin’s fees
in the four grading periods since the October 2007 low
fluctuated from 77.1 percent to 87.5 percent to 79.5
percent and 69.9 percent, according to the figures.
Overall, Lockheed
Martin since 2002 has been paid 82.1 percent of
eligible fee, or $1.528 billion of $1.862 billion,
according to the figures.
Lockheed Martin is the
lead contractor on the program. Major subcontractors
include BAE Systems Plc and Northrop Grumman Corp.
Lockheed rose 14 cents
to $79.35 at 11:57 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange
composite trading. The shares dropped 10 percent in
2009.
F35 Program Restructure
- From AFA
From 30 to 13: The sweeping
restructure of the F-35 strike fighter program will
turn what might have been a 30-month schedule slip into
just 13 months, Pentagon acquisition czar Ash Carter
confirmed Thursday during a media telecon. Carter said
prime contractor Lockheed Martin could get back "some"
of the $614 million in award fees
being withheld due to schedule slips, but he
wouldn't say exactly how much, since this is a
negotiating point. Lockheed would have to share some of
the costs of getting the program back, he said. Having
just completed an F-35 summit at Lockheed's facility in
Fort Worth, Tex., Carter said representatives of the
F-35 partner nations are on board with the changes and
recognize they will "add some cost to initial
aircraft," but stave off bigger problems. None of the
partners or US military services are backing off their
planned F-35 buys, he said.
F-35 Hovers For First
Time
(DEFENSE NEWS 17 MAR
10) ... Christopher P. Cavas
Hanging about 150 feet in the air, the F-35B
short-takeoff, vertical-landing (STOVL) stealth fighter
hovered at zero airspeed for the first time March 17.
"The aircraft hovered for about 96 seconds," said Chris
Geisel, a spokesman for Lockheed Martin. "It then went
up and down and turned right and left to check
maneuverability before coming in for a slow 70 knot
landing."
Graham Tomlinson, F-35 lead STOVL pilot, slowed the
aircraft in flight from 200 knots, first to 60 knots,
then to zero.
The tests are being conducted at Naval Air Station
Patuxent River, Md. The hover flight took place on the
second of four flights, or sorties, on March 17, each
flight demonstrating different aspects of the jet's
maneuverability, vertical thrust, stability and
control. The fourth sortie featured a short takeoff in
STOVL mode, Geisel said, where the aircraft took off at
100 knots while using less than 1,000 feet of runway.
Next up in the test program, Geisel said, is a vertical
landing.
The F-35B is being developed for use by the U.S. Marine
Corps, where it will replace the aging fleet of AV-8B
Harrier II jump jets. The aircraft is intended to
operate from ships and unimproved or short airfields on
land.
GAO Warns More F-35
Cost And Schedule Hiccups Likely
(DEFENSE DAILY 22 MAR
10) ... Emelie Rutherford
Government auditors' latest
assessment of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program warns
additional cost growth and schedule extensions, beyond
those recently unveiled, are likely.
The Government
Accountability Office's (GAO's) sixth annual F-35 report,
released last Friday, reflects much but not all of the
latest cost data emerging from the Pentagon on the effort
to buy 2,443 jet fighters for the Air Force, Navy, and
Marine Corps.
The program's total
procurement cost has risen to a much as $232 billion, in
2002 dollars, compared to $143 billion back in late 2001,
according to a F-35 "unit cost report" for March the
Pentagon also released last Friday.
Pentagon officials are
planning to recertify the Lockheed Martin [LMT] aircraft
effort, a step required under the Nunn-McCurdy statute
because of cost overruns; however, congressional aides said
Congress had not been officially notified of the
Nunn-McCurdy cost breach as of last Friday.
The F-35's
average-procurement-unit cost has risen to as high as $95
million in 2002 dollars, a growth of up to 89 percent since
the program received milestone B approval in 2001,
according to the Pentagon.
Air Force Secretary Michael
Donley will officially notify Congress of the Nunn-McCurdy
cost breach before April 1 and a required package
recertifying the F-35 as a vital program that must continue
will be sent to Capitol Hill around early June, Pentagon
officials told the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC)
March 11.
The GAO's Michael Sullivan,
director of acquisition and sourcing management, at that
March 11 hearing previewed his office's new report, titled
"Additional Costs and Delays Risk Not Meeting Warfighter
Requirements on Time."
The report says the
Pentagon's recent restructuring of the F-35 program--which
extends its development phase and reduces the number of
production aircraft purchased in the early years--"should
improve outcomes and provide more realistic cost and
schedule estimates."
Yet it warns,
"Restructuring is not finished and further cost growth and
schedule extensions are likely."
The report cites concerns
with "substantial overlap of development, test, and
production activities while (the Defense Department)
continues to push ahead and invest in large quantities of
production aircraft before variant designs are proven and
system performance verified."
The GAO reiterates its call
for "adopting a more evolutionary, incremental strategy
that delivers proven and operationally suitable
capabilities when available, but acknowledges that more
time is needed to deliver the full capabilities."
Multiple "testing and
technical challenges," the GAO report states, "will likely
add more costs and time to development, affecting delivery
of warfighter requirements and hampering start up of pilot
and maintainer training and initial operational testing."
The GAO recommends
conducting a comprehensive and independent assessment of
F-35 costs and schedule that goes beyond the analysis
already done by the Pentagon's Joint Estimating Team,
Independent Manufacturing Review Team, Joint Assessment
Team, and Naval Air Systems Command.
"While the independent cost
estimate completed by the Joint Estimating Team is a very
good start, it by design focused only on the near term,"
the GAO says. "Until a complete and comprehensive cost
estimate that provides cost through completion of
procurement and includes a more complete estimate of
military construction funding requirements is formally
adopted as the new program of record, JSF program costs
will remain unclear."
"Tying annual investments
more directly to demonstrated progress in developing,
testing, and manufacturing aircraft would be a prudent
fiscal measure," it adds.
The Pentagon, in response
to an draft of the new GAO report, says it concurs with the
GAO's recommendation for such a cost and schedule estimate.
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