LO,
Thanks for the DoD report, sounds like the F-35 is good to go into IOC with the Marines as planned by them.
Now one has to admit the DoD published report is the beginning of a new phase in program/project reality and perhaps management. Up until this point everything published and advertised by L-M and DoD regarding the F-35 has been generally Okey-Dokey or Hunkey-Dory which ever applied best to the deficient item of discussion. Most deficient items have been swept under the carpet headings of "things are improving, "Things have gotten better" or "That really isn't important in modern day air warfare. However, IMHO, the DoD's love affair with L-M may be ending and rightly so. Their track record for timely delivery promises, cost performance and product performance has been abysmal on newer military aircraft programs, on a naval ship program (USS Freedom LCS1) and a rocket program that was cancelled. Programs they inherited through acquisition of then existing companies still run generally well.
The DoD procurement office seems to be in shambles these day with no abatement of the river of cash flowing through the front doors of the Pentagon from the US taxpayers to cover cost overruns and fix it programs and then they cry wolf for more. One voice that has rang out regarding the F-35 Program has been that of USAF General Bogdan. Two years ago, he felt the way the program was set up with L-M by the DoD Procurement folks made no sense. In fact we have seen demonstrated proof of that as time goes on.
On
Total System Performance Bogdan said, “We gave Lockheed very broad things that said the airplane has to be maintainable, the airplane has to be able to operate from airfields, the airplane has to be stealthy, the airplane has to drop weapons—without the level of detail that was necessary. We have found over the 12 years of the program that the contractor has a very different vision of how he interprets the contractual document. We go, ‘Oh no, it needs to do X, Y, and Z, not just Z.’ And they go, ‘Well, you didn’t tell me that. You just told me in general it needed to do something like Z.'
On
Payment Structure Bogdan said, “Most of the risk on this program when we signed this contract in early 2001 was on the government squarely. Cost risk. Technical risk. Perfect example: in the development program, we pay Lockheed Martin whatever it costs them to do a particular task. And if they fail at that task, then we pay them to fix it. And they don’t lose anything.” Bogdan explained that, since taking office, he has made burden-shifting a priority. Beginning with more recent batches of F-35s, Lockheed Martin will cover increasingly larger shares of cost overruns as well as a percentage of “known aircraft retrofit requirements”—that is, the cost to fix flaws discovered on planes that have already come off the assembly line.
On
Tired of Business as Usual Bogdan said, “Sometimes industry is not accustomed to what I call straight talk. It can get cozy sometimes. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve been there,” he said. “I’ve seen senior leaders on both sides of the fence. And I can tell you that when you take over a program that has had problems like this, being cozy is not an advantage.” He continued, “We awarded the original contract in 2001. We’ve been at this for 12-plus years, and we should be a lot further on in the program and in our relationship than where we are in 12 years.”
So, now we are 14 years along and key dates continue to be pushed out. The political process that keeps the F-35 airborne has never stalled. The program was designed to spread money so far and so wide—at last count, among some 1,400 separate subcontractors, strategically dispersed among key congressional districts—that no matter how many cost overruns, blown deadlines, or serious design flaws, it would be immune to termination. It was, as bureaucrats say, “politically engineered.” And then there is the L-M spin advertising game and lobbyist campaigns.
Perhaps some of Bogdan's observations and resolve has begun to sink into the upstairs deadheads in the Hunkey-Dory floor of the Pentagon, all is not well and realists have known that for sometime.
BTW, don't compare Lockheed of old (Kelly's Skunk Works) to today's Lockheed Martin, they are by far two different entities.
