F-35 Total Costs Soar to $1.5 Trillion; Lockheed Defends Program

PENTAGON: Lockheed Martin scrambled today to explain the latest increases in the Joint Strike Fighter's costs, arguing that the three versions of the aircraft "will be comparable to or lower than that of the seven" older airplanes it will replace. Overall, the F-35 will cost an appreciably impressive $1.5 trillion over the 55 years it is expected to be flying, up from an estimated $1 trillion.

The latest numbers were released this afternoon as part of the Pentagon's authoritative Selected Acquisition Report. The overall value of the program comes from a Lockheed Martin statement.


For perspective on just how much money is involved, the latest Government Accountability Office's survey of major defense program says the estimated cost of the Pentagon's 96 major defense acquisition programs is $1.58 trillion. The "total acquisition cost" of these programs has grown by 5 percent to $74.4 billion. GAO says "about $31.1 billion can be attributed to factors such as inefficiencies in production, $29.6 billion to quantity changes, and $13.7 billion to research and development cost growth. As GAO puts it, these costs are "dominated by a small number of programs, with the Joint Strike Fighter accounting for the most cost growth in the last year, and the largest projected future funding needs."

The costs of the F-35 aircraft itself rose $10.7 billion; Pratt & Whitneys F135 engines that power the plane are treated separately and their costs rose $5.6 billion.

Lockheed issued a statement noting that the cost projections "are based on a number of variables that are subject to considerable fluctuation over the next 55 years, making the estimate inherently imprecise." Also, Lockheed notes the Pentagon has never before tried to project the costs of an aircraft over such a long stretch. And the Pentagon added "several new costs and program adjustments" that had not been part of earlier SARs.

"For example, the 2010 SAR estimate projected only operations and support costs, while the 2011 SAR projection adds the cost of acquisition and development. This results in the appearance of cost growth year over year," Lockheed argues. "The DOD's decision to shift the delivery of 179 aircraft beyond 2020 also added cost growth. This shift caused a $60 billion increase in operations and support costs due to inflation and the two-year program extension. The SAR estimate also added four squadrons, grew staffing requirements and increased scope. For example, the 2011 estimate added 2,650 personnel for maintenance and security for the U.S. Air Force at an additional cost of $24.3 billion. The government also included the cost of lifetime modernization to the aircraft to improve its capabilities - expenses that are not included in the cost projections for other aircraft."

Frank Kendall, the presumptive undersecretrary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, told the Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that he had come up with affordability targets to drive Lockheed Martin to save costs. We obtained a copy of the F-35 SAR talking points and they include those targets for both production and for sustainment. These numbers are for unit recurring flyaway cost. (This is the cost to buy a plane, not to operate it. It also usually doesn't include all development costs.)

We lay them out for each of the three models.

Production

F-35A = $83.4 million

F-35B = $108.1 million

F-35C = $93.3 million

Cost Per Flying Hour

F-35A = $35,200

F-35B = $38,400

F-35C = $36,300

The F-35 was not alone in getting more expensive. The next generation aircraft carriers (CVN) increased 5.5 percent or $2.2 billion "due primarily to the application of revised escalation indices (+$951.0 million) and revised estimates for CVN-78 non-recurring engineering, Dual Band Radar, and construction performance variance (+$811.0 million). For the second carrier, CVN-79, "higher estimates for non-recurring engineering, basic construction and Government Furnished Equipment (GFE), overhead and industrial base impacts, and inflation" pushed the costs up $1.2 billion.

The ignoble award of highest percentage increase for a program (one not changed much by quantity changes) goes to the Multifunctional Information Distribution System (MIDS). Program costs rose 13.1 percent to hit a nice and juicy $3 billion.In this articleTopics

CVN-78

CVN-79

F-35JointStrikeFighter

Lockheed Martin

MIDS

Pratt And Whitney


The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is the perfect example of waste and abuse in the military budget. After ten years and billions of taxpayers’ dollars, we have little to show for the Pentagon’s most expensive program in history except money down the drain.
The F-35 came with the promise of affordability, but current estimates place the lifetime operational cost at $1.5 trillion, more than three times the initial estimate of $420 billion.¹ That’s $18,439.33 per taxpayer! And don’t expect that number to go anywhere but up.
Even Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and former Defense Secretary Robert Gates have soured on the plane, with Gates calling the F-35 an “unnecessary and extravagant expense.”²
Cutting the F-35 is a no-brainer and could save up to $600 billion over the next decade without undermining our national security.³ But Republicans in Congress are fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent any cuts to the military budget whatsoever.
We know that public pressure works. Back in 2009, we led a successful campaign to defeat the F-22, another plane we couldn’t afford and didn’t need.

http://defense.aol.com/2012/03/30/f-35-total-costs-soar-to-1-5-trillion-lockheed-defends-program/

http://breakingdefense.com/2012/03/f-35-total-costs-soar-to-1-5-trillion-lockheed-defends-program/

http://breakingdefense.com/

V-22 Osprey Crash In Morocco Kills Two

WASHINGTON: A Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey crashed in Morocco on Wednesday, killing two U.S. military personnel. Neither the cause nor circumstances of the accident were immediately available.

Wire services quoting U.S. embassy spokesman Rodney D. Ford called the dead "soldiers" but military sources told AOL Defense the only personnel aboard the aircraft were its Marine Corps crew, consisting of two pilots and two enlisted crew chiefs. Next-of-kin had yet to be notified as of 5:30 p.m. EDT Wednesday, so the names of those killed had yet to be released.

The MV-22 was from VMM-261, one of several Osprey squadrons based at Marine Corps Air Station New River near Jacksonville, N.C., and was attached to the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, AOL Defense's sources confirmed, speaking on condition of anonymity because U.S. Africa Command was responsible for publicly releasing information on the crash.

The accident occurred during a bilateral exercise with the Moroccan military called African Lion in which about 1,000 Marines and 200 other U.S. military personnel were participating.

Wednesday's accident marked the first fatal crash of a Marine Corps Osprey in more than a decade, a period in which the helicopter-airplane hybrid "tiltrotor" enjoyed the best safety record of any Marine combat rotorcraft. An Air Force CV-22 Osprey carrying Army Rangers on a night raid hit a ditch and flipped onto its back after a hard landing in Afghanistan on April 8, 2010, killing four of 18 on board.
 
 
http://defense.aol.com/