Monday, April 21, 2014

F-35 News. Program Manager admits death spiral all but here...


via National Defense Magazine.
Anytime anyone moves airplanes to the right, the price goes up.”
The surest way to lower cost, he said, is to bring in more foreign buyers into the program. The SAR estimates, he noted, do not include a possible order of 40 F-35s by South Korea, or anticipated future purchases by Singapore and Israel.
We are pretty sure that Israel is not going to stop at 19,” Bogdan said. Another potential customer is Japan, which has a fleet of about 200 F-15s, half of which have been modernized. “At some point they will have to make a choice,” he said. “I can't influence that decision, other than keep driving the price of the airplane down. Then these FMS [foreign military sales] customers will make choices.”
Today, about 30 percent of F-35 components are made outside the United States, which exposes U.S. aircraft buys to fluctuations in foreign currency rates.
Bogdan insisted that the impact of budget cuts by the United States and other F-35 buying nations on aircraft cost projections should not be underestimated. In the Pentagon’s fiscal year 2015 budget proposal, the Navy delayed purchases of 33 aircraft and the Air Force postponed four. Turkey and Canada slipped their buys by one year, and the Netherlands slashed its order from 80 to 37. The cumulative effect of these changes, said Bogdan, is a cost increase of 2 to 4 percent to the price of each airplane. If sequester-level budgets are enforced by the Congress between 2016 and 2019, 17 fewer U.S. aircraft would be produced.
Anyone who thinks the death spiral hasn't started isn't paying attention.

To hope that Israel buys more of these airplanes is a joke.  The budget isn't there and they still have to figure out maintenance.  Italy is about to slash its buy and Bogdan didn't touch on that.  Additionally Japan has indicated that its going to build its own stealth fighter so that's another miss for the program.

Things are dark and gloomy, the USN is sold on electronic warfare being the future not stealth and this is just the beginning of the bad news.

The Advanced Super Hornet Growler is the workhorse that the Marine Corps needs to make the MAGTF more deadly.  Utilizing the two seat approach to command UAVs, coupled with the airplanes inherent electronic attack that is useful across the spectrum of warfare and you have a combat multiplier extraordinaire (take that Pentagon speakers!) that WILL make the Marine Ground Combat Element more lethal.

11 comments :

  1. Growler or Navalized A-10 beats this bird hands down.
    O/T
    Wildfire Ebola containment break alleged in Pisa Italy in a group of migrants.

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    1. i've seen stories about Ebola reaching Italy, but a minor correction.

      illegal immigrants are said to have brought the disease ashore. but other than that i've heard the same as you. supposedly an entire hospital has been quarantined and there is a news blackout by authorities.

      i can't verify any of it but its spreading among survival/prepper sites.

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    2. Please point me one source of these reports Sol. I am intrigued...

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  2. 200 Japanese F-15's becoming F-35's...LOL. Yes the F-15J is not as stealthy. The F-15 wins out in almost every category all of which are still necessary...Speed, climb, 2 seats for WO, bomb truck, missiles, range, dog fighting.
    So now comes the problem, F-15s are getting older and F-35s though are not the solution.
    I suspect the Japanese purchase of F-35s is really to build knowledge on stealth technology so that they can ultimately apply it on their own fighter program.

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    1. Japan surprisingly doesn't need much technical assistance from the US to build the F-3; they got the airframe, radar(AESA was invented in Japan and then transferred to the US), missiles, etc except for the engine, the F119.

      What's holding Japan back is the financial issue; it cost several tens of billions of dollars to develop and build F-3s, and not even Japan could fund it all alone and is seeking a partner to share the output. Given the F-3's high spec, only the US would need and be able to afford such a high-spec fighter jet.

      As for the F-15J replacement, it does look like it will be the F-35 with AESA Meteor missile integrated, although some F-15J may receive EW pods and serve as Japan's Growler.

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    2. An F-15 growler type aircraft would make a lot of sense. At some going forward this debate between electronic attack and stealth will re-balance.

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  3. ...and the Advanced Super Hornet Growler is the machine for the Marine corps. So in context of the air force and advanced F15 and advanced F16 are the interim aircraft for the next 10 years, while things get sorted out.

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  4. Last I heard, Singapore has no intention to go down F-35. Lock-Mart will have a helluva time convincing the shrewd Singaporeans with F-35.

    Incidentally, what is the access status of the source-code for the F-35? I mean, Israel won't be purchasing a bird if the source code is restricted.

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  5. What the program is missing is Milestone-C. That is the actual authority that allows them to make LRIP jets...legally on any other acquisition planet. The big reason people are delaying buys is that they want to see something close to a finished working product. Not even close to that yet. It is pretty amazing to think how small-medium-enterprises are being hit. They were told years ago that by this time, the U.S. alone would be ordering 170 jets per year. Which means today, that is a lot of lost money. Google: "Bonfire Of The SMEs" Best quote from that article: "O'Donnell cited one family-owned business, Production Parts Pty in Australia, which made "a substantial investment because they expected production volumes to be twice what they are today." Production Parts itself, he added, has enough other business to keep going, but others are not so well off." And....well? 2 years later, Production Parts.... went out of business.

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  6. Funny looking death spiral:

    http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/bn-fighter-deal-sets-defence-record/story-e6frg8yo-1226892807576#

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  7. Agreed about the odd looking "death spiral" considering that Australian order.

    Like most large military programs the cost involved will be impacted by global economic conditions but the F-35 has survived the hard part of its development where there was a serious chance it could be cancelled. Like many historical fighter programs it has taken some hits and goals aren't as high as the optimistic figures once hoped for but like those historical programs it still can succeed.

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