WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military is working closely with Lockheed Martin Corp and other suppliers to lower the per-plane cost of the F-35 fighter jet and improve its reliability, the chief weapons buyer for the U.S. Air Force said in interview on Monday.
Assistant Air Force Secretary William LaPlante said the price of the new A-model F-35 is on track to drop from $112 million now to the mid-$80 million range by 2018 or 2019, but the program is developing plans to drive the price even lower.
The Government Accountability Office, a congressional watchdog agency, remains skeptical about those efforts, noting that the A-model jets procured in 2013 cost $124.8 million each, about $41 million above the Pentagon's target for 2019.
The U.S. military was also focused on improving the reliability of the jets, which are breaking down between flights more often than expected, he said.
The F-35 A-model was intended to cost around $50 million per plane, giving the United States and its allies a low-cost way to replace a dozen warplanes now in service. Critics say technical challenges have driven costs higher, which could jeopardize the larger orders needed to achieve lower costs in the longer term.
"There are lots of ideas on how to bring the costs lower," LaPlante said. He said the parties were looking at what specific investments could be made by industry and government to lower production costs, but gave no details.
The Pentagon is due to unveil a plan with new cost targets for the $392 billion program in early 2014.
The GAO on Monday said the program had already lowered the overall cost of developing and buying 2,457 F-35 fighter jets by $11.5 billion or 3.3 percent last year.
The Pentagon's own cost projections, due to be sent to Congress in mid-April, are expected to show a similar drop in F-35 costs, sources familiar with the issue said Tuesday.
Lockheed is developing three models of the F-35 for the U.S. military and eight countries that helped fund its development: Britain, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, Italy and Netherlands. Israel and Japan have also placed orders and South Korea this month announced plans to buy the jet.
LaPlante said the Air Force still planned to boost its F-35 orders to around 60 jets a year to achieve economies of scale and drive the cost lower. He said the service made difficult choices in its fiscal 2015 budget and five-year spending plan to protect the ramp up in F-35 production for that reason.
"The operation and sustainment cost is a bigger issue," LaPlante said. "It's the one that will say whether or not we can afford (the F-35)" in the longer run.
The Pentagon's chief weapons tester reported in January that the F-35 fleet was available for use an average of 37 percent of the time from late 2012 to October 2013, far below the minimum threshold of 50 percent and the program's goal of 75 percent. The program is aiming for 60 percent availability by 2015.
LaPlante said the effort was looking at which parts were failing more often than expected and making changes there, but improvements would take time to show up in the statistics.
"It's going to take a sustained effort," he said. "We're going to be watching this one over the next one to two years."
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Eric Walsh)
DOD Is Stuck with a Flawed $1.5 Trillion Fighter Jet
By David Francis9 hours ago
On CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday night, national security correspondent David Martin chronicled the seemingly never-ending list of problems with the Pentagon’s next-generation F-35 fight jet, from cost overruns of $160 billion to technical problems that have plagued the plane’s development.
When asked if the F-35 program, which is expected to cost some $1.5 trillion over the four-decade life of the program, is now under control, the Pentagon’s acquisition chief, Frank Kendall, said, "Yes, it is."
“Long gone is the time when we're going to pay for mistake after mistake after mistake," said Lt. Gen. Christopher Bogdan, the officer who took control of the F-35 program last year. He added that the planes are necessary, however, to keep pace with the technology being developed by U.S. rivals Russia and China.
“I don't see any scenario where we are walking back away from this program. We're going to buy a lot of these airplanes,” said Bogdan.
DOD is so far down the F-35 rabbit hole, both in terms of technology and cost -- $400 billion for 2,400 planes -- that it has no choice but to continue with the program. Still, it’s not too far gone to send a message to the plane’s manufacturer, Lockheed Martin.
A report in The Washington Post about DOD’s 2015 fiscal request says the Pentagon needs funds to purchase two of the Navy’s version of the plane, six of the Marines,’ and 26 of the Air Force’s model. It’s a sizable order, but it’s actually eight planes less than the 42 originally expected.
In the scheme of things, eight fewer jets among an order of 2,400 is not a big drop. But the timing of the leak to the Post, as well as the admonishment to Lockheed on “60 Minutes,” is hard to dismiss as mere coincidence.
Lockheed did not comment on camera on the “60 Minutes” report.
Lockheed and DOD have been squabbling over F-35 problems for years. In October, a DOD Inspector General report found 719 problems with the plane and said “Lockheed's failure to make sure subcontractors' work was not up to snuff.”
Lockheed countered that the problems were not new and that they were “based on data that's more than 16 months old and [a] majority of the Corrective Action Requests identified have been closed.”
“Producing quality products is a top priority for the F-35 program, and Lockheed Martin and its suppliers strive every day to deliver the best aircraft possible to our customers," Lockheed said in a statement at the time. “When discoveries occur, we take decisive and thorough action to correct the situation. Our commitment is to deliver the F-35's world class Fifth Generation fighter capabilities to the warfighter on time and within budget.”
It seems as if DOD is attempting to send another message with Sunday night’s broadcast and the news that orders are expected to be cut in 2015. This isn’t just a cost issue any more, either – DOD needs the plane to work in order to maintain air superiority.
Unfortunately, the Pentagon is stuck with the F-35, for better or worse, so Lockheed doesn’t really have an incentive to deliver a state of the art plane in working order. DOD is stuck with the contract regardless.
If Lockheed cares about national security, it might want to get the plane working soon. China and Russia are in the plane’s jet contrails and catching up fast.
Lockheed aims to deliver all 36 F-35 jets in 2013, sees progress on program
December 13, 2013 11:53 PM
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The fourth U.S. Air Force F-35A Lightning II aircraft arrives at the 422nd Test and Evaluation Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada in this April 24, 2013 photo released on May 8, 2013. Picture taken April 24, 2013. Daniel Hughes/U.S. Air Force/Handout via Reuters
FORT WORTH, Texas (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp (LMT) still expects to deliver the final seven of 36 F-35 fighter jets to the U.S. government from its Fort Worth, Texas facility, before year-end despite a five-day halt in test flights due to bad weather over the past week, the company's F-35 program manager said on Friday.
Lorraine Martin, executive vice president and F-35 general manager, said 2013 has been a transformative year for the $392 billion program, marking the beginning of pilot and maintainer training, reductions in production costs, and progress on software, weapons testing and other technical issues.
She said the program - the Pentagon's most expensive weapons program - remained intensely focused on finishing development and flight testing of the next-generation fighter over the next three years, as well as driving down the cost of building and operating the planes.
"The program is on stronger footing than ever before," Martin told 2,000 workers and guests at a ceremony celebrating completion of the 100th F-35 at the company's mile-long plant in Fort Worth that included patriotic songs and videos.
The Fort Worth area was shut down by a crippling ice storm late last week causing delays in flight testing required before Lockheed can turn the new F-35 jets over to the government.
Delivering the 36 jets in 2013 is important for Lockheed which is trying to demonstrate improved performance on a program that is years behind schedule and 70 percent over initial cost projections.
Martin told reporters that 2014 would be another key year for the program, with the Navy's C-model due to carry out sea trials on an aircraft carrier next summer, the first jet to be completed at a new assembly plant in Italy, and the first jet for Australia to be delivered.
Speaking in Washington, Air Force Chief of Staff General Mark Welsh underscored the importance of the F-35 to ensure U.S. air superiority and said current "legacy" fighters would not survive a future fight against stealthy next-generation fighters being developed by Russia and China.
"Operationally, we need the F-35 ... This is not a good time to walk away from the F-35 program in any way, shape or form," he told a Pentagon briefing. He said truncating the F-35 program would raise the cost of the remaining jets.
Lockheed is building three models of the radar-evading fighter for the U.S. military and eight countries that helped fund its development: Britain, Canada, Australia, Turkey, Norway, Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands. Japan and Israel have also ordered the plane, and South Korea has signaled its plan to buy at least 40 F-35s as well.
Air Force Lieutenant General Chris Bogdan, the Pentagon's F-35 program manager, told a defense conference last week that the program had a "tragic past," but the cost of the plane was coming down, flight testing was continuing, and most technical issues had been addressed.
The last batch of F-35 A-models cost around $107 million, including the engines, but Martin said the company expected to beat that cost in the eighth production contract to be negotiated early next year.
By the time the new stealth fighter reaches full-rate production in 2019, she said it would cost around $75 million in current year dollars, or less, putting it on par with the cost of current fourth-generation fighter jets.
Boeing Co (BA) says its F/A-18E/F Super Hornet costs about $51 million, including engines and radar, but congressional aides say the price is closer to $70 million when sensors, targeting pods and other equipment that is standard on the F-35 is included.
Orlando Carvalho, executive vice president of Lockheed Aeronautics, said Lockheed was aiming to deliver 38 aircraft next year, an increase of two from this year, and hoped to start ramping up production to help drive down costs.
"The need to ramp is key to being able to keep taking cost out of the airplane," Carvalho told reporters after the ceremony. He said the company was looking at every option for continuing to lower the cost of the aircraft.
He said Lockheed was meeting revised cost, schedule and delivery targets mapped out during a big restructuring in 2010, and had about three years to go until development was done.
"Like any smart athletic sports coach, we're not going to declare victory until the game's over and we're done," he said.
"With any program like this, you always have to be worried about an unknown that may come out of nowhere. We're never going to sit here and say we're out of the woods," he said, "What we're going to do is stay focused on the fundamentals, day in and day out, and just keep finishing the development."
Air Force General Robin Rand, commander of the Air Education and Training Command, told the ceremony that he was looking forward to the start of training at Luke Air Force Base near Phoenix, where the 100th jet will be delivered next year.
Lockheed is due to deliver 17 airplanes to the base by the end of 2014, and officials expect to start the first training course there for U.S. and allied pilots in May 2015.
Rand said the F-35 would be "the most lethal and advanced fighter airplane on the planet," and he wished he was 20 years younger so he could fly it.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal-Esa; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Diane Craft)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet is making good progress as it nears initial combat use by the U.S. Marine Corps in July 2015, but the company must still finalize the software needed to deliver weapons and fuse data from its many sensors, the Pentagon's F-35 program chief told Reuters.
"Getting to 2015 there's a whole lot of things that have to be put in place, not the least of which is the software on the program," said Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, the Air Force three-star general who took over the helm of the $392 billion F-35 program around one year ago.
Software was the program's No.1 critical issue, he said, noting that the jet alone had more than 8.5 million lines of code, while its related systems had 11 or 12 million more.
Officials have also launched an "earnest effort" to ensure that planes already built for the Air Force and Marine Corps are modified to adjust for issues found in flight testing so they are ready for initial combat use, Bogdan said.
The Air Force has said it plans to start using its conventional takeoff F-35 jets from mid-2016. The Navy will follow suit in late 2018.
Lockheed is building three models of the radar-evading warplane for the U.S. military and eight countries that helped fund its development: Britain, Canada, Norway, Australia, Turkey, Italy, the Netherlands and Denmark. Japan and Israel have also ordered F-35 jets.
Bogdan told a defense logistics conference on Wednesday that the Pentagon's biggest weapons program - which is years behind schedule and 70 percent over initial cost estimates - had a "tragic past," but was now making good progress.
Bogdan said it was time to take "that baggage from the past and put it aside and judge the program where it is today."
He said Lockheed is on track to deliver 36 jets this year, and the cost of the plane was coming down year after year. Flight testing was about 60 days behind schedule after two separate groundings early this year, but the delay could be absorbed by the margin built into the development program.
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Workers can be seen on the moving line and forward fuselage assembly areas for the F-35 Joint Strike …
At Eglin Air Force Base in Florida on Wednesday, the program hit a new single-day record of F-35 flights, flying 45 training missions with all three models of the new jet, said Joe DellaVedova, spokesman for the F-35 program office.
The total included 32 flights with the Marine Corp's B-model, which can land like a helicopter, 10 flights with the conventional A-model, and three flights with the Navy's C-model, designed to land on aircraft carriers. In addition, one Dutch F-35 returned to Eglin from Maryland.
In an interview after his speech, Bogdan rejected criticism that the Pentagon is plowing ahead blindly with a program that is too complex and expensive. He said the government knows "an awful lot" about the airplane and its cost and is doing better holding its manufacturers accountable for their performance.
Bogdan said critics of the F-35 focused on the program's delays and technical shortfalls, but the U.S. military and its allies were growing more confident in the plane every day.
He said there was growing international interest in the new stealth fighter, and South Korea, Singapore and other countries could place orders in coming years. Such orders were good for all the countries involved because they would drive down the cost of each airplane and associated infrastructure, he said.
By some measure, including the F-35's ability to maneuver tight turns, the F-35 is on par or even slightly below that of current fighter planes, Bogdan said.
But the plane's ability to combine data from a host of different sensors and share it with other aircraft made it "a vastly superior airplane" than current warplanes, he said.
"What makes the airplane leaps and bounds better than legacy airplanes," he said, "is the ability to know what's going on around it when it comes to other airplanes and other threats, and its ability to take that information and give the pilot a very clear picture and then give that picture to a lot of other people who don't have the sophisticated sensors that we have."
He declined to give details since some of those attributes are classified, but said testing of the software that would provide the "360-degree situational awareness" was going well.
"Some of that stuff is in the classified realm, so people don't understand it and we can't talk freely about it," he said. "Until we get out there and prove that, people are going to be naturally hesitant because that is a leap above what we have today. It makes everybody in the battlespace smarter."
Bogdan said relations between the government and the prime contractors on the program - Lockheed and engine maker Pratt & Whitney, a unit of United Technologies Corp - had improved sharply since he became deputy director in July 2012.
Just over a year ago, Bogdan described that relationship as the "worst" he had ever seen in decades of working on acquisition programs.
Since then, the Pentagon had dramatically increased its oversight of the program and had become far more vigilant about holding the companies that build it accountable, he said.
But the F-35 program office and the contractors also communicate more often and more openly than before, he said.
"What we embarked on over the last 18 months is constant...'straight talk' with our contractor and our stakeholders," he said, noting that he had spoken three times on Wednesday alone with Lockheed's F-35 program manager, Lorraine Martin. "The communication between the program office and them is much more constructive now than destructive."
"The more we talk and the more we communicate, the more we understand each other's position, we can get past the blame game and get on to finding solutions for things," he said.
Bogdan said the Navy version of the new fighter was also making progress and testing of a redesigned tail hook that allows the plane to land on aircraft carriers would begin in coming months after completion of a critical design review.
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