"Is the F-35 worth it? " Topic

"…The Air Force, Navy and Marines are all counting on the F-35 to replace the war planes they're flying today. If it performs as advertised, the F-35 will enable U.S. pilots to control the skies in any future conflict against the likes of China or Russia. But the F-35 has not performed as advertised. It's seven years behind schedule and $163 USD billion over budget, or as the man in charge of the F-35 told us, "basically the program ran itself off the rails."…"
Full interview here.
link

Amicalement
Armand

Sure, why not? It's only money.

Yeah, these things happen when you're building a revolutionary aircraft, not to mention when you roll three different requirements (conventional, CATOBAR carrier-capable, and STOVL) into one platform.

See also F111.

It depends.

One only hopes that there isn't some fat cat out there skimming the government (us tax payers) out of millions. As long as the money is going to working class families supporting the economy while giving our military a superior weapon system then I'm ok with it. Lockheed better not be making record profits.

It looks like a necessary expense to me. China already has too many advantages over us. Giving up air superiority sounds pretty damn scary and would make potential enemies much bolder. Its a lot of money but sadly needed. Of course there are always other options but considering how much they have already invested I can't see them yanking it now.

Too much experience with government contractors makes me wonder was it worth it. I tend to doubt the working class families supporting the economy actually see the money, and if the weapon does not work then well what was it really worth other than keeping Lockheed doing well.

Um, USAF pilot you're confused about what "profit" means. If Lockheed is making record profits, that goes to the shareholders-- primarily people investing for their retirement/college/etc, (life/health/liability/fire/house) insurance premiums, and pension funds.

I think what you mean to say is you hope they aren't running record LOW profits and funneling the money into executive compensation.

And, yeah, Lion in the Stars, I was thinking of the Aardvark situation myself.

Exactly, Wellspring.

I still don't understand why the government should pay these companies to develop products up front. They should only be paying for useable end products just like everyone else. Running R and D on a new product should not be a money making part of the job.

No, even with today's deflated dollars.

And, despite any company's performance, they always funnel too much money into executive compensation. I think that is one of the laws of physics, apparently.

TMP link

Yeah, these things happen when you're building a revolutionary aircraft, not to mention when you roll three different requirements (conventional, CATOBAR carrier-capable, and STOVL) into one platform.

I'm still questioning whether we now have an aircraft that can nearly do all three reasonably well, whereas we may have been better off (and it would probably be cheaper) with three different aircraft that are excellent in each dedicated role?

I think it's fine for USAF and USMC.

It's no good for Allies or USN:

USN F-35C is a dud in terms of performance – a sluggish and slow bomb truck.

USN was pushing for a pause in production for F-35C.

But DoD has argued production should continue.

As for allies, F-35 is so expensive it guts fighter fleets. E.g. South Korea could afford 40 F-35 or 60 F-15Ks.

It's even worse in Europe.

Numbers still count.

Sadly TH I think you are right. The UK has put all it's eggs in one very expensive basket and there is no back up plan. We have scrapped a lot of capability to buy this plane and the 2 carriers to fly it off and now we can't afford the planes or the carriers. I think our order is down to 80-90 or about 4 squadrons worth. Goodness knows how many Norway and Denmark will get – maybe share 1 between them! As we have gone with F-35B our carrier will have no cross deck commonality with US or French carriers.
The last time this happened to us with the F-111 we bought the F-4 Phantom off the shelf which worked out very well for the UK. I don't think there is anything we could buy instead this time so we will have to hope they get this right in the end.
Personally when it comes to defence procurement I think the UK should do what India does. Let someone else spend the R&D budget to get it right and then buy it off the shelf when it is a proven design and the vendors are desperate to offset some of the massive overspend by generating foreign sales. With the usual local servicing, assembly etc deals you can keep your industry ticking over.

The problem is that with any new fighter project, R&D is essential. And it's what economists call a transaction-specific investment. A company like microsoft or phizer can simply price their R&D into their products. But even if alternative buyers existed, the US government wouldn't let Lockheed sell to them. Since one failure can bankrupt the company and because the government can't be trusted to adhere to the number of units it has committed to buying, they require assistance with the R&D budget up front. And rightly so.

Also, this involves basic research. Anytime you add that component, you don't know what you'll get because by definition research involves exploring the unknown. Hence ballooning costs and stretching deadlines. Though at this point the delays in the F-35 seem to come from practical engineering screw-ups rather than basic technological issues.

Of course, when the number of available contractors goes goes down, and you get these gigantic, uncancellable contracts, then you lose all the discipline that a free market creates. It's a dire mistake. The reason it happened is because normally the USAF and Navy fight over whose needs are more important. Making it all One Big Contract puts everyone on the same side and makes it a disaster if it's cancelled. Especially if you add international partners (the same thing happened w/ the Eurofighter). The features that make this such a bad project make it great politically.

Right now we're in the finger-pointing phase. Hopefully we'll come out of it with a workable product. The challenge is that a major attractive part of the F-35 was cost-- and we KNOW that that's a dead issue. So the plane comes out already having failed on its major selling point.

Wellspring is right. It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately. When the Lockheed-Martin X-35 beat the Boeing X-32 in the JSF competition back in 2001 (saw it in a NOVA feature on PBS), it was just a basic prototype, an underdeveloped ‘technology demonstrator.' Both companies were given $750 USD million of taxpayers' money to build their prototypes, by the way. Once the lucrative contract was awarded to Lockheed-Martin, it got the green-light to run with the ball so-to-speak. Because they are developing cutting-edge "new technologies," no limit was placed on future R&D and final unit cost, both of which have skyrocketed beyond initial projections. The fact that the specs of the F-35 have to meet the different requirements of 3 separate military branches didn't help matters.

Companies will not bear any risks because they have little incentive to do so. What if they foot all the R&D costs, and the Pentagon changes the requirements or, even worse, cancels the program outright because it changed its mind for whatever reason? They'll be left with a product no one can buy; because of technology transfer restrictions they can't export the plane to foreign countries.

So we, the taxpayers, are at the mercy of the military-industrial-congressional complex, because the military development and acquisition process follows its own set of rules and are not beholden to ‘buying from the lowest bidder.' Once Lockheed-Martin won the competition, they were basically given a carte blanche to do as they see fit, as long as they meet the Pentagon requirements. And because they are breaking new grounds in developing new technologies, only they can determine how much it would cost (i.e. they are given free rein to set the price), since no one else had ever done it before.

So we might as well resign ourselves to the harsh reality.

The better program to contrast this one with is the F-16 / F-18 programs. There you had a competitive evaluation that lead to some very nice results. In the end, BOTH designs were successful. Without the discipline brought on by the possibility of failure, programs balloon out of control.

Right now we're in the finger-pointing phase. Hopefully we'll come out of it with a workable product. The challenge is that a major attractive part of the F-35 was cost-- and we KNOW that that's a dead issue. So the plane comes out already having failed on its major selling point.

If the F-35 was meant to be the cheap option compared to the F-22, then they shouldn't be aiming for cutting edge technology. Cheap and cutting edge don't go together.

The better program to contrast this one with is the F-16 / F-18 programs.

Although the navy and airforce were supposed to share a common design too. Also the cost and scope of what was meant to be a cheap light weight fighter soon disappeared!

I think the problems with F-35 are:

1. Main users have too different a requirement especially in terms of operating modes. This increases complexity.

2. Revolutionary as opposed to evolutionary development which increases risk.

3. Arguably overengineered – e.g. instead of going for a simple Helmet Mounted Sight for targetting purposes, they got rid of the HUD altogether and put everything into the helmet which incidentally doesn't work.

4. Having Lockheed Martin as lead contractor for naval version. Lockheed hadn't designed naval craft since S-3 Viking. They stuffed up such simple concepts as position of tail hook.

The USN version has also been steadily downgraded in terms of performance to the point where it's clear the Navy doesn't want it.

5. Designed for a mission that arguably doesn't exist much anymore – i.e. penetration of advanced air defences.

Last time US penetrated any semi-capable air defences was 1991 and since then it just gets easier as most of the world can't afford even the most basic IADS, let alone a capable IADS and a capable and effective air force.

6. Overpromised on performance and cost (meant to be as cheap as an F-16).

7. Investment in F-35 has gutted US fighter development capability.

Delays in F-35 have left USAF with a fleet of very old fighters, very old advanced trainers, inadequate CSAR and a positively ancient tanker and bomber fleet.

USMC is also left with old fighters as they refused to buy into F/A-18E/F.

8. Cost of it is gutting NATO air capability.

E.g.
Belgium – replace 60 F-16s with 35 F-35

Netherlands – replace 85 F-16s (now reduced to 62) with mere 37 F-35

UK – only committed to 48 F-35Bs and only a total of 70-ish serials allocated. Original requirement was 150 and then 138.

Italy – F-35 requirement reduced from 131 to 90 and now there's a push to reduce it to a mere 45.

Canada – 80 F/A-18 replaced by 65 F-35s. Though it turns out cost blow outs means this is impossible.

I generally agree with you, although the tailhook debacle was reportedly caused by erroneous USN-provided data.