JSF and A400M at risk?

[ORAC]

Agreement reached on A400M military plane costs

AFP - European aerospace giant EADS has accepted a proposal from seven partner governments to finance cost overruns of 5.2 billion euros (7.1 billion dollars) on the A400M military transport plane, French Defence Minister Herve Morin said on Thursday.

"We received a response yesterday night from EADS to the letter sent a few days ago by the participating states. There are no more financial demands on the part of EADS," he said at an informal meeting of EU defence ministers.

The seven NATO nations -- Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain and Turkey -- had offered a total of two billion euros in additional financing as well as an additional 1.5 billion euros in credit guarantees.

To cover the rest of the cost overrun, EADS will book another 1.7 billion euros in charges on top of the 2.4 billion euros it has already booked. Last week EADS said it was ready to book only 800 million euros in additional charges.

Before the deal is finalised, EADS wants to ensure that the seven nations do not sharply reduce their orders for the aircraft, Morin said.

The seven nations ordered 180 of the highly innovative planes which can carry troops, armoured vehicles and helicopters for 20 billion euros (27 billion US dollars).

[moosemaster]

Originally Posted by OFBSLF

Originally Posted by moosemaster

At least with A400, we become masters of our own training destiny (provided the MoD go ahead with the planned purchase of a sim, of course.)

So the RAF can afford to rent or purchase A400 simulators, but not to rent more or purchase C17 simulators? You can afford to set up A400 training, but not C17 training? Why would the cost for one be so different than the cost for the other?

Sorry for the late reply OFBSLF.

It's not that the RAF can't afford to buy the sims, it's that Boeing don't sell them, they run them, staff included. Because they cost so much, Boeing will only set them up in locations of their choosing, depending on the number of aircraft at a given location. As the A400M sim would be bought outright, it could be staffed by our own personnel as well, much like the Herc OCU is now. A C17 ground school and sim would have to be staffed by Boeing employed civilians. Not, in my view, the best option for the service, given the alternative.

Originally Posted by VinRouge

Want to point out what the K is doing at the moment aside from getting towed from one side of LYE to the other?

We have 2 AT fleets. The K lost a lot of its engineers to the J a while back.

If it hasn't been disbanded, it's still a fleet, and while there are still frames, and personnel attached, it's still a fleet. Just because it's not an effective fleet, it doesn't mean it isn't using resources.

Originally Posted by AARON O'DICKYDIDO

I think you will find that the A400M will come in two shades. I believe that 2 of the aircraft will be development aircraft ('cos we can have them cheap!!!). Unbelievable eh ? So we will have 4 fleets.

I heard this was an option, but I believe EADS have decided to keep those aircraft "in company" rather than selling them on. It wouldn't have been too big a deal anyway, more like having different 'Block'. Some differences, but nothing major.

[Uncle Ginsters]

Moosemaster et al,

Nearly right. Although Boeing don't sell the C17 sims, the do sell c17 sim hours.

It's another fallback to the original 'short-term lease' mentally with which a lot of the jet's operations were set up.

The trouble is that we're coping now, so why spend cash on a sim that we don't need and wouldn't use all of the hours on our own. It's cheaper for now to continue sim training in the US.

The good news is that now there are more Europe-based operators - Ramstein, Papa - there might be nearly enough custom for Boeing to justify a UK sim in terms of hours usage....we'll see!

[Jig Peter]

Perhaps not all clear ...

In a follow-up report to its earlier short piece about the latest A400M agreement, the Dépêche du Midi today (25/2) notes that while EADS has no more financial demands to make, some other points haven't yet been cleared up. One potential hiccup is that only France has actually stated the amount it will pay (€400 mio). Germany hasn't said anything openly, while UK is noted as "having budgetary difficulties". This doesn't concern EADS directly, but is still a (maybe slight) shadow over the programme.
An earlier report mentioned that Germany in particular was very keen on the super Navigation and Terrain Avoidance system "at least equal to what other aircraft in the Luftwaffe have" said to be part of the initial contract but, according to a reoprt of the French Senate a while back, seems not yet to have been invented.
What Hervé Morin, France's Defence Minister called a "new, revised contract" is supposed to be ready for 8th March, the day before EADS' 2009 Annual Report is due to be published. Perhaps when EADS' "Matthew Mattickle" , the Wizard Accountant and his staff have done their sums, it really will be "Fat Lady Time" - at last ...

Meanwhile if stroppy Air Traffic controllers don't object, the local sky could well be hearing and seeing MSN1 before the week-end ... Bring it on !!!


02/03. After the 200+ kph winds that hit the central Pyrenees a few days ago (overshadowed by the storm damage further up the Atlantic coast), it was perhaps over-optimistic to expect No.1 A400M to be in the skies of southern France already, but the continued silence from Seville makes me wonder if "continued discussions" are going well ... Perhaps EADS will have something more to say on 8th March, and also indicate a first flight date for MSN 2 .
(Also sprach the incurable optimist)

[OFBSLF]

It's not that the RAF can't afford to buy the sims, it's that Boeing don't sell them, they run them, staff included. Because they cost so much, Boeing will only set them up in locations of their choosing, depending on the number of aircraft at a given location. As the A400M sim would be bought outright, it could be staffed by our own personnel as well, much like the Herc OCU is now. A C17 ground school and sim would have to be staffed by Boeing employed civilians. Not, in my view, the best option for the service, given the alternative.

I'm just a lowly non-mil SLF, so you'll have to excuse my naivete. While Boeing has not sold C17 sims in the past, don't you agree that if the UK committed to buy X C17s and insisted that a simulator be included part of the deal, that Boeing would agree to sell the simulator to the UK? If the RAF turned up at Boeing HQ in Chicago and announced "we want to buy a dozen C17s and we want a sim, too, " do you really think Boeing would say "no, we won't sell you the sim," thus jeopardizing the sale of airframes?

Isn't it also likely that the cost of a C17 simulator would be similar to that of an A400M simulator? If not, why would a C17 simulator cost significantly more than an A400M simulator?

The figures that I found put the cost of a C17 simulator at around $35M. With a new C17 costing in the neighborhood of $250M, the cost of the simulator seems to be rather inconsequential. So even if the C17 sim costs double that of the A400M sim, $20M is lost in the wash when you are talking about $250M for a single airframe.

I understand the arguments against the C17/C130J combination as not providing some capabilities of the A400M. I understand the arguments against buying the C17/C130J combination based on preservation of jobs and capabilities. I don't understand the argument that C17 training would be more expensive than A400M training. So I've got to be missing something vital.

[highveldtdrifter]

Equiv,

When we signed the A400 contract we agreed to purchase the training aids (sim etc) from AMSL, rather than direct from the manufacturer. Since the program is a loss maker, we can expect price hikes and high markups for the peripherals. I expect the A400 sim will come it at roughly twice the price of a C17 device.

[OutOfThisWorld]

Didn't the Aussie Air Force just buy a C-17 Sim from Boeing, to be operated by Boeing trained RAAF Sim Instructors (IPs)?

On that basis it must be possible to buy a Sim from Boeing. The question is whether the purchase would be a financially viable option given its usage.

[Jolly Green]

The USAF didn't buy the sims because they view buying the training as more cost effective. After all they want the training (manned sim hours) not the gadget. If they owned the sim they'd have to man it, maintain it, update it as the aircraft changes, etc. They'd have more property on their books, more hassles for management that is only manned for managing aircraft and airfields, and therefore they'd have more targets for the next round of budget cuts.

Sometimes budget cuts take people off the job, sometimes budget cuts take resources away, but budget cuts never take away training requirements directly. You're supposed to be able to do more with less. By leasing the training, they've put any budget cuts directly to sim hours, making them less likely to be cut.

If the people working the sim are military, then the whole mess gets even worse. The USAF is still working under the fallacy that when an airman is deployed, his job back at home base doesn't need to be done. But of course it does because they never shut down the home base. The people left work longer and harder. So the sim has to be manned by civilians, and the easiest way for the USAF to hire civilians is to just hire a contractor to do the work.

[moosemaster]

OFBSLF, I'm not 100% certain where the assumption that C17 training is more expensive than A400 training came from, however, as I said in my previous post, it's not down to cost of training.

I also disagree that if the UK agreed to buy X aircraft then Boeing would rethink their "non-selling" position and sell us a Sim. The USAF have over 200 aircraft and they still don't own a sim. It's just not something that Boeing do.

They do have an agreement with the USAF to provide a "local" training facility within a region where there are a pre-determined number of aircraft permanently based, hence why there is now a C17 sim in Hawaii, but not in Germany.

It is possible that once the UK reach the required amount, Boeing may concede that a Sim is beneficial there, or somewhere nearby, but there would be no way to force them into it if it wasn't financially viable for them. As the Equivicator said, they sell hours. If the site isn't financially viable, ie sells enough hours, then they won't do it, or they force the UK to stump up the price for a fully utilised sim.

Also, under Boeing rules, all their instructors must be US qualified (not military quals, but US accredited, civilian instructional qualifications). This is not ideal if we wanted them to teach our guys, our way. The UK guys who currently go through the course do an abridged USAF course, then undertake further UK training upon their return.

Anyway, all I'm saying is that once you start looking at the logistics of it, a Boeing run C17 sim in UK may not be a better option, practically speaking, than a UK run A400 sim.

[OFBSLF]

Boeing is in the business of selling things. If the RAF went to Boeing for a multi-billion dollar aircraft purchase and insisted that they wanted to own the simulator, Boeing would find a way to sell one to them. If Boeing can find a profitable way to build a simulator and rent it to the USAF, then they can find a profitable way to build a simulator and sell it to the RAF.

I'm not 100% certain where the assumption that C17 training is more expensive than A400 training came from, however, as I said in my previous post, it's not down to cost of training.

C17 training costs more but it isn't the cost of the training? Err, what? If the training cost doesn't cost more, than how does the training cost more?

Anyway, all I'm saying is that once you start looking at the logistics of it, a Boeing run C17 sim in UK may not be a better option, practically speaking, than a UK run A400 sim.

So you buy the bloody thing rather than have Boeing run it! Boeing isn't going to turn away an order for 25 C17s because the RAF wants to own its own sim.

[herkman]

The Australian Air Force discovered the hard way, when our then Labour government failed to allow the purchase of a 707 simulator.

After the sad loss of one with all crew deceased, they suddenly came to the understanding that they were one of the greatest users of this aircraft. So in record time one was found and commissioned.

After that it was policy for at least large aircraft a simulator would be part of the purchase package for any new product. So even though we have only four C17's (which are not enough) we do have a simulator which is far more cost affective.

One of the reasons the 707 were taken out of service, was their number of cycles, which could have been greatly reduced if the 707 simulator had been procrured much earlier.

The long term concept of using other location simulators was not attractive, at least we are now masters of our own destiny, a concept that we are very comfortable with.

I guess from a concept of reducing cycles etc on your C17 a case could be worked up for purchase.

Regards

Col

[ORAC]

Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Documents detail serious problems with F-35 program

Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other Pentagon officials have made it clear in recent weeks that they are unhappy about the F-35 joint strike fighter program. The reasons are likewise clearly evident in the contents of internal government documents reviewed by the Star-Telegram.

Monthly reports prepared by the Defense Contract Management Agency show that as recently as mid-November, development of the F-35 was in serious disarray. Lockheed Martin and other contractors were producing key components and completing airplanes more slowly, not faster, documents show. The reports are heavily redacted to prevent disclosure of detailed financial information, but indications of major problems leap off the pages. They include:

• Nine flight test aircraft, all of which were to have flown by the end of 2009, were behind schedule by 4 1/2 to 8 1/2 months when the report was written, in November. Only one of those planes has flown since then.
  
• The next plane expected to fly is now 11 months behind the schedule that was rewritten in early 2008.
  
• "Initial production" aircraft, a number of which were to be delivered and flying this year for training and further testing, are running months behind schedule and falling further behind each month.
  
• On-time deliveries of parts and components by suppliers, which was 88 percent in April, plunged to 71 percent by September. But the blame isn't just with the suppliers. The reports say many of those delays are caused by Lockheed's many design changes.

One subcontractor that has done reasonably well is Northrop Grumman, which builds the center fuselage section of the F-35. Northrop was told to delay fuselage shipments in November and December because Lockheed could not fit them into the assembly line. Lockheed was "cannibalizing" parts from fuselages being built by Northrop to repair aircraft on the assembly line and in preflight testing.

Lockheed has already spent several hundred million dollars in reserve funds, money rounded up two years ago by cutting out two test airplanes and 1,400 test flights, which the company and program managers agreed would not be needed. The Pentagon now plans to add test planes to speed up testing..........

AWST (Ares): JSF IOC - Slip Slidin' Away

[LowObservable]

It looks like the naysayers and deniers were right...

[ORAC]

F-136 Engine Update

HASC Chairman Says Pentagon ‘Near-Sighted’ on JSF Alternate Engine

WASHINGTON, D.C. | House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) released the following statement on the U.S. Department of Defense’s update of the Joint Strike Fighter/F-35 competitive engine cost-benefit analysis:

“Yesterday, I was finally provided with a copy of the ‘business case’ upon which Secretary Gates based his decision to oppose the development of the competitive engine for the F-35. While the committee is still reviewing the analysis, 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. The costs of the second engine in the next few years must be balanced against the fact that life-cycle costs of having two engines are comparable to having only one. The Department’s analysis does not consider the risk that a single engine would present not only to our fighter force, but to our national security, given that the F-35 will account for 95 percent of our nation’s fighter fleet. With this program, as with all others, we cannot use near-sighted vision when long-term security is at stake.

“I look forward to continuing the dialogue on this program with my colleagues and the Department of Defense. But I remain unconvinced that terminating the alternate engine program makes sense.”

AWST (Ares): New Doc: Biz Case Analysis for Killing F136

In a Feb. 24 report, the Defense Dept.'s CAPE director, Christine Fox, outlines the department position on terminating the F136.

This report was long-sought by lawmakers, who have been adding funding for F136 back into the budget since February 2006 (when the Fiscal 2007 first deleted money for F136). The total Congressional add is about $1.3 billon since the Pentagon walked away from the program.

This copy is incomplete. Other pieces of the report were deemed proprietary or for official use only. Also, you'll see some points included from Hill staffers -- including that the decision lacked inclusion of non calculable factors, including the risk of a grounding if an engine problem crops up and a back up isn't ready.

Bottom line -- even the Pentagon acknowledges that two engines or one is cost neutral.

----------------------

First 2 comment responses to the above:

1. So the business case for canceling the F136 ignores:

• Hedging risks.
• Greater responsiveness from contractors as a result of competition.
• Providing alternate growth paths.
• Industrial base preservation.
• Potential for innovation from a 2nd contractor.

And ignoring all that, the Pentagon says that it is cost neutral.

Sounds like an argument FOR the F136.

2. Which makes for an interesting story to tell JSF partner nations that have been briefed all the time since the start of the program, alleged value of the F-35 program because one of the reasons is engine choice.

Then there is the issue of the JSF Memorandum of Agreement (updated Dec 2009) which states this:

"6.2.2 The Participants may designate the F135, the F136, or both in their PPRs in such quantities and in accordance with such delivery schedules as they require."

Funny how Gates never brings up that issue. Why?

Interesting also is a past (gone native) head of the DOD JSF program office General Davis who started all of this with the real reason being so the program wouldn't brake Nunn-McCurdy.

Seems like there is more reporting to be done.

[ORAC]

AWST (Ares): Bill Sweetman: JSF - Mid Year Check

If February was a bad news month for the Joint Strike Fighter, with the program boss fired, a 13-month delay in test and a two-year slip in Air Force initial operational capability, look out for March. A Government Accountability Office report is rolling down the tracks, along with a Selected Acquisition Report (SAR) which, as we told you in Defense Technology International a month ago, is almost certainly going to record a critical Nunn-McCurdy breach.

Meanwhile, the flight test program continues to log an all-time slow record. In the first half of FY2010, as of Friday, the JSF program logged 35 sorties, and progress to date looks like this. (Thanks, JoBo.)



That's a small improvement over the 51 flights in the whole of FY2009, but hardly encouraging in view of the 5,000-plus test missions yet to be flown. In its March 2009 report - based on data that's now a year old - the GAO noted that 1,243 test flights were planned for FY2010. (At that time, we accurately predicted that the program was not going to hit its FY2009 goal.) The total sorties flown now stand at 155 - and almost two-thirds of those were performed by AA-1, the non-representative and now retired first prototype.

The core of the problem could be what Lockheed Martin says it is: simply delays in building aircraft. Bob Cox of the Fort Worth Star Telegram has a detailed story based on Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) reports. They portray a manufacturing disaster, with tasks running months behind schedule and suppliers unable to meet deadlines because they were not given final designs in time. To get airplanes in the air, parts were removed from airframes further back on the production line - which in turn have to be repaired in the same time-consuming out-of-sequence manner. And the delays are already rippling into low rate initial production, with the first two deliveries slipped into the last quarter.

The DCMA reports also confirm comments here a few weeks ago.

Lockheed Martin says things are getting better - but then a lot of people, apparently including Defense Secretary Gates, are beginning to take the program's official pronouncements with this:



After all, for every month's litany of problems in the program, you'll find a Lockheed Martin or government program boss assuring the customers, Congress and the taxpayers that everything is going fine. "On track", as they like to put it.

Remember this distinction: The Donner Party was on track. They were not on schedule.

But the trouble with the "it's all late deliveries" argument is that the program has accomplished so little with the aircraft that it has managed to complete.

Comparison 1: Three years after starting flight tests, the F-22 - in most ways a more challenging design than the F-35, had supercruised and flown to high angles of attack and zero airspeed, performing throttle snaps throughout the envelope. It had logged 830 hours. (High-alpha testing on the F-35 won't happen until late 2011.)

Comparison 2: A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away - towards the end of 1995 - the Eurofighter EF2000, as some Pollyanna had named it, had notched up 81 flights in 18 months of testing, about the same rate as JSF today.

That was when I started hearing reports about show-stopper problems with the so-called "carefree-handling" jet: it could get itself into flight conditions that took a lot of time and altitude to get out of. I was talking to people who knew that the in-service date was going to be 2005 at the earliest. I was working with the BBC's Panorama news show on the story. BAE Systems was very far from gruntled, and sicced one of London's top libel lawyers on us. Our sources went to ground and the story that emerged was milder than what we knew to be happening.

The Typhoon did enter service in 2005, after the very difficult qualification of the automatic low speed recovery system.

So, the last time that a major program moved as slowly as this, there was at least one show-stopper problem that nobody knew how to solve, and that had been swept under the rug successfully and at great expense. And it involved more than forgings and bolts.

[SSSETOWTF]

ORAC,

I think the phrase that describes your 'facts' is 'lies, damned lies and statistics'. Could I humbly suggest you check your numbers? And when you've got some accurate numbers, you might want to look at the underlying reasons a little more closely - you may be surprised to find they explain things really quite well. Or you could just be negative like all the cool kids I suppose.

I'm sure you just forgot to mention that AA-1 has gone supersonic and done a whole load of throttle snaps. Curiously enough BF-1, being a STOVL airplane and instrumented for STOVL parameters, has been focusing on STOVL testing and not chasing high alpha test points. I would have thought that would make sense to most people? And I suppose it's convenient to your argument to avoid talking about the hundreds and hundreds of test hours flown by Catbird, the Sabreliner and the BAC1-11 etc that have made huge reductions in risk for our mission systems.

Best wishes,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly

[ORAC]

SSSETOWTF,

May I suggest you address your remarks to Bill Sweetman, Editor in Chief at Ares, a part of AW&ST?

[ORAC]

'Data deluge day' for F-35 By Stephen Trimble

Carter Orders JSF Changes

CEOs, Armaments Directors to Meet in Ft. Worth on JSF

[mole man]

A400M

Any news of the A400M flying again????????

Mole Man

[BEagle]

Not sure, mate. Weather has been terrible in Spain and France for the last week, so perhaps not. I may know more tomorrow......