F-35 Cancelled, then what ?

[John Farley]

glojo

The back end of every aircraft is manufactured in the UK.

So I think you will find that UK plc will get their aircraft free and make a profit.

[Courtney Mil]

Spain make the left wing and rear fuselage of the Typhoon, but you can be sure they don't get theirs for free and then make a profit! If every member country of a consortium made a profit on a programme, where does the money come from?

[glojo]

I personally feel we have two chances of making a profit from this aircraft and they are 'zero' and 'none'. I do hope I am talking tosh but I will not be holding my breath.

Tongue in cheek remark:
If we are building the rear part of this state of the art aircraft then are we responsible for this....

The arrester hook issue has been reported. In the first round of tests, the hook failed to catch the wire once. The QLR notes that tests of a minimal modification - a reprofiled hook with different damper settings - set for April "represent only the initial stages leading into full carrier suitability demonstrations."

Studies are already underway of changing the hook's location - the basic problem is that the designers put the hook closer behind the main landing gear than that of any current or recent Navy aircraft, even the tailless X-47B - but that will have "major, direct primary and secondary structural impacts".

[Courtney Mil]

Real hooks were built by Mac Air and Blackburn. Give the contract to people that know. Oh, hang on, they've gone. It just wouldn't seem right to get Boeing or BAES, would it? Oh, I see what's happened now.

[Engines]

Glo,

Fortunately, the UK made bit of the fuselage does not include the Arresting Hook System (AHS) or the supporting structure, which is massive with a big M.

The issue reported is serious but should be solvable with some clever engineering - but if the hook has to be moved aft that is going to be a very serious design change indeed.

The source of the issue is the well aft location of the main wheels - driven in part by the requirement for long weapon bays and also by the structural layout that hangs a number of big loads (aft spars, verticals, thrust mounts, main gears) on or around a big frame located well aft. In addition, with a single engined aircraft, there isn't much structure at the end of the fuselage to hang the hook system on, mostly just jetpipe. That moved the hook system forward. The repor`t contains a huge amount of interesting detail.

My bet is that they will try a hook point and damper redesign, and if that doesn't work, they could go for a more complex (but sadly heavier) translating or extending hook mechanism to get the point further aft. If that's not possible, it's a hook system move aft - potential nightmare.

This is a complex one to fix and test, as the time between the main wheels hitting the wires and the hook engaging them is not fixed and the dynamic behaviour of the wire is complex, depending whether you engage in mid span or off centre. You also have to do a number of traps on land and more importantly at sea on a pitching and heaving deck to really test it out.

Remember, this cat and trap stuff is complicated and difficult. The USN make it look easy. It ain't.

Best Regards as ever to all those actually doing the dangerous stuff on land or sea,

Engines

[glojo]

Hi Engines,
Thank you very much indeed for that comprehensive answer. My remarks responding to the comments of John Farley were very much tongue in cheek.

A very complex situation and as you rightly say a flight deck is not a static hunk of concrete. The UK ships are also smaller than there US counterparts which in turn means they may well be more prone to uppy, downy movements

I still have my fingers crossed that all these issues will be resolved but will I get arthritis in my joints before these aircraft become operational?

[John Farley]

Courtney Mil

Not wishing to labour the point but Typhoon/Tornao/Jaguar comparisons are not really valid in this context. We are building a very large number of backends and only buying a small number of complete aircraft.

[sycamore]

Suggest they take plenty of nets.....

[Mach Two]

Didn't really think that one through, Courtney. Also, this programme has a very different organisation. Although there are some issues at the moment (that's what flight test is for), the programme so far hasn't been plagued with the Euro-political issues you had with Typhoon. I get the impression you weren't a great fan of that programme?

M2

[cazatou]

John Farley

I am afraid you are trying to convince people who never let facts get in the way of a strongly held opinion!!

[glojo]

Oh the tangled web we weave and I guess my remarks regarding profits or the lack thereof were very much tongue in cheek and I apologise for the confusion. When governments make defence overspends that exceed Ł100m then this money is being paid into the defence industry?? (Question).

I am sure it is a pure coincidence that we see ex government ministers, plus very senior retired flag officers going into this type of industry.

Admiral Sir John Slater, the former first sea lord, left the military in 1998 and became a director and senior adviser to Lockheed Martin UK. Is this the company that manufactures the F-35??

Michael Portillo, The secretary of state for defence from 1995 to 1997, became non-executive director of BAE Systems in 2002 before stepping down in 2006.

No doubt it was a pure coincidence that BAe commenced the manufacture of the F-35 in............ what year?? wait for it..........

Look here

for the answer

Yup a pure coincidence that the ex Secretary of State for Defence was a director on the board of BAe from 2002 until 2006 and it is just a coincidence that midway between that term the company started manufacturing significant parts of the F-35. His First class degree in History would no doubt be hugely beneficial when advising BAe regarding any technical issues they might face during any negotiations he may or may not have been involved in 'after leaving office!'

Then we have these paragons of virtue:

Someone who is NOT on my Christmas card list...
Lord Reid, secretary of state for defence from 2005 to 2006, said in 2008 that he had become group consultant to G4S, the security company that worked closely with the Ministry of Defence in Iraq.

Major-General Graham Binns left the military this year and is chief executive of Aegis Defence Services, a leading security company.

Sir Kevin Tebbit, permanent under secretary at the MoD, is chairman of Finmeccanica UK, owner of Westland helicopters.

David Gould, the former chief operating officer of the MoD's procurement division, is now chairman of Selex Systems, part of Finmeccanica.

These appointments are to me just plain wrong, government officials and senior officer should NOT be allowed to get ANY type of remuneration from any companies that they may have been involved with during their time either in government or serving the Crown. Folks who may be far more cynical than my good self might think they are exposing themselves to all types of allegations.

I am a nosey devil and am curious as to the contracts regarding the rear section and was wondering how it gets negotiated. Would I be correct to suggest the rear section of the 'B' model would be the most complex and therefore possibly the most expensive?

If the 'B' series gets cancelled or as has already happened, the numbers are greatly reduced. Would the contract be renegotiated, or is it a fixed price contract based on numbers?

Is the 'B' still on probation and has there been any literature on the tests carried out aboard the USS Wasp.

Originally Posted by Congressional Research Services pages 10/11

Responding to issues detailed in the technical review, on January 6, 2011, Secretary of Defense Gates announced a change in the F-35 testing
and production plan focused on the F-35B:

In short, two of the JSF variants, the Air Force version and the Navy’s carrier-based version, are proceeding satisfactorily.

By comparison, the Marine Corps’ short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) variant is experiencing significant testing problems. These issues may lead to a redesign of the aircraft’s structure and propulsion, changes that could add yet more weight and more cost to an aircraft that has little capacity to absorb more of either.

As a result, I am placing the STOVL variant on the equivalent of a two-year probation. If we cannot fix this variant during this time frame and get it back on track in terms of performance, cost and schedule, then I believe it should be canceled.

We will also move the development of the Marine variant to the back of the overall JSF production sequence.

Three major technical issues emerged for the F-35B.

The first was premature wear on hinges for the auxiliary inlet door feeding the F-35B’s lift fan, which caused the F-35B fleet to be grounded in September 2010. A technical fix was in place by January 2011.

Second, cracks were discovered in a bulkhead of an F-35B used for fatigue testing “after the airplane had been subjected to the equivalent of about 1,500 hours of flight time out of 16,000 hours planned.”

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin has redesigned the bulkhead, and “‘(o)ther locations of similar design are also being assessed,’ company spokesman John Kent said in an e-mailed statement Jan. 11.” The aluminum bulkhead is unique to the F-35B; “F-35A and F-35C bulkheads are still made of titanium, as are similar bulkheads on the F-22.” I have altered the font colour just to highlight this issue is only relevant to the 'B' model.

Third, the driveshaft, lift-fan clutch, and actuator for the F-35B’s roll-post nozzles will be redesigned following discovery that the driveshaft contracts and expands more than expected, and that the other components experience more heat than anticipated during flight operations.

Moving F-35B development, which had been scheduled to lead the program, to the back of the queue should reduce the impact of F-35B issues on the schedule for the A and C models, which are encountering fewer development challenges

.

[jindabyne]

I am afraid you are trying to convince people who never let facts get in the way of a strongly held opinion!!

Ever thus, here

[rh200]

Looks like the Japs have gone for the F35, would have thought they need more than that though.

Japan picks F-35 as new fighter - reports | News.com.au

[ORAC]

AW&ST: F-35 Under Fire In Italy

ROME — The Italian government is ushering in a new round of defense cuts in which, for the first time, the fate of Rome’s participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program will be seriously threatened.

The newly launched defense review not only has sweeping implications for Italy’s defense ambitions but also rings in a further belt-tightening in Europe among countries that are just beginning to come to grips with the scale of their budget and debt problems.

In Italy, much of the work on the military review remains to be completed. Nevertheless, a sharp reduction in the number of F-35s Italy will buy is virtually certain, military officials say. At least a third of the 131 fighters slated for procurement will likely fall under the budget ax, with some minority parties arguing for an outright program termination.

Rome is one of the largest international buyers of the F-35 — after the U.K. drastically cut its procurement objective in its 2010 spending review. Italy plans to spend €13 billion ($16.7 billion) to buy and sustain both the F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing and the F-35B short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing versions, though it has not ordered any aircraft yet.

Other major procurement projects are also under scrutiny, but the F-35 has received the lion’s share of attention because of the size of the planned outlays.

Although Italy assessed its spending needs in 2010 in light of an era of fiscal austerity, the change late last year to a technocratic government, led by Mario Monti, specifically put in place to handle the country’s financial problems more aggressively, has put military spending back in the crosshairs. The government, although not elected, enjoys broad support in the parliament to carry out sweeping reforms.

Also potentially affecting the JSF debate is the fact that the government is very much focused on budget considerations rather than foreign policy ambitions. Cancelling the 22 navy F-35Bs would leave the service without fighters to put on its aircraft carrier after the AV-8B Harriers are retired. While that would crimp the ability to project forces, those considerations may not hold much sway with the Monti government. Such a move would likely cause the Italian air force also to drop plans to buy 40 F-35Bs and focus instead entirely on the F-35A.

On the other hand, working in the JSF’s favor is that even at reduced numbers, the F-35 procurement would allow Italy to capitalize on the €2.5 billion it spent or pledged to the development and construction of a JSF final assembly and check out (FACO) facility at Cameri air force base. Work on the FACO is progressing quickly to be ready by 2014 to meet original JSF production schedules.

[ORAC]

How the F-35 Nearly Doubled In Price (And Why You Didn’t Know)

On June 14 — Flag Day, of all days — the Government Accountability Office released a new oversight report on the F-35: Joint Strike Fighter: DOD Actions Needed to Further Enhance Restructuring and Address Affordability Risks. As usual, it contained some important information on growing costs and other problems. Also as usual, the press covered the new report, albeit a bit sparsely.

Fresh bad news on the F-35 has apparently become so routine that the fundamental problems in the program are plowed right over. One gets the impression, especially from GAO’s own title to its report, that we should expect the bad news, make some minor adjustments, and then move on. But a deeper dive into the report offers more profound, and disturbing, bottom line. Notorious for burying its more important findings in the body of a report — I know; I worked there for nearly a decade – GAO understates its own results on acquisition cost growth in its one-page summary, which—sadly—is probably what most read to get what they think is the bottom line.

In that one-page summary, GAO states the F-35 program now projects “costs of $395.7 billion, an increase of $117.2 billion (42 percent) from the prior 2007 baseline.” The much more complete story is in this table from the report:



The summary uses the wrong baseline. As F-35 observers know and as the table shows, the cost documentation of the F-35 program started in 2001, not 2007. There has been a lot more cost growth than the “$117.2 billion (42 percent)” stated.

Set in 2001, the total acquisition cost of the F-35 was to be $233.0 billion. Compare that to the current estimate of $395.7 billion: cost growth has been $162.7 billion, or 70%: a lot more than what GAO stated in its summary. However, the original $233 billion was supposed to buy 2,866 aircraft, not the 2,457 currently planned: making it $162 billion, or 70%, more for 409, or 14%, fewer aircraft. Adjusting for the shrinkage in the fleet, I calculate the cost growth for a fleet of 2,457 aircraft to be $190.8 billion, or 93%.

The cost of the program has almost doubled over the original baseline; it is not an increase of 42%. Now, you know why DOD loves the rubber baseline. Reset the baseline, and you can pretend a catastrophe is half its actual size.......

[Courtney Mil]

Good analysis, Orac. And it will only get worse. I guess the good thing about being involved with earlier programmes was that a high-percentage overrun only ment a few billion. This is gross. And at a time when we are finaincially strapped. So what now? Alternatives anyone?

[Milo Minderbinder]

Off the wall thought, but what are the chances of an "F-35B-lite"?
Using the powerplant and main structural assembly, but de-specified to remove the costliest of the stealth aspects, cutting back on the advanced systems.
For instance if you removed the stealth coatings, user cheaper structural materials and used an off-the-shelf radar?
It wouldn't have the same capability - but it may have a better availability, lower cost, could be in service quicker through needed less development and could be a stand-in (and learning curve enabling) interim stand-in

[Courtney Mil]

Ah, yes. But it sounds a bit like buying back our old Harriers.

[Milo Minderbinder]

`Or we could reopen the Sea Harrier line and put the tin wing on them...

I reckon we'd still get them in service earlier than the F-35B, despite the need for new jigs and staff..

[glojo]

Okay I'll be the fall guy..

Axing the harriers was bonkers