This is the most recent cost jump in the F-35 program. With increases like this, its future is definitely not looking good!

Lockheed F-35 Projected Cost May Rise an Additional $51 Billion
April 12, 2010

The cost of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 fighter, the most expensive U.S. weapons program, may rise as much as $51 billion beyond the $328 billion estimate given to Congress April 1, according to a worse-case Pentagon scenario.

The cost per plane would then be $155 million, 91 percent higher than the $81 million projected when the program began in 2002. The program’s total cost, calculated in current dollars, would increase 64 percent to $379 billion.

The Pentagon’s independent cost-analysis office is compiling projections to comply with a law that demands an assessment of any weapons program that exceeds its original projected cost by 50 percent. The Pentagon must also certify to Congress that the program is vital to national security and shouldn’t be canceled.

The lowest projection in the cost group’s fact sheet is the $328 billion stated by the military’s program office. The estimate of $379 billion is the “upper range,” Pentagon spokesman Colonel David Lapan said in an e-mail.

The group’s report won’t be released until its assessment is finished June 1, though the findings to date have been shared informally with some lawmakers.

Senate Hearing

What impact the new figures might have may surface at a hearing tomorrow of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2011 request for aviation programs. When the panel met March 11, the F-35’s estimated cost was $298 billion.

Committee chairman Carl Levin, in opening that hearing, said that while the panel has backed the F-35 program, “people should not conclude we will be willing to continue that strong support without regard to increased costs.” Levin is a Michigan Democrat.
The assumptions supporting the new estimate are more pessimistic than those used by the program office or Lockheed on the pace and progress of laboratory and flight testing, the number of engineers that will needed, and the costs for labor and materials.

Chris Giesel, spokesman for the world’s largest defense company, said Lockheed has “not seen the new data figure of $379 billion.

“However,” he said in an e-mail, “we can foresee no scenario in which F-35 unit costs are even close to the projections of the cost analysts.” The company and its partners “are confident the actual aircraft costs negotiated will be substantially lower.”

Next-Generation Fighter

The F-35 is the U.S. military’s next-generation fighter. Designed for missions that include bombing and air-to-air combat, it will be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. It will replace such aircraft as the F-16, A-10 and Harrier that are flown by the Marines and the U.K.

The program is already four years behind schedule on key milestones, including completing the development phase and combat testing, beginning full-scale production and then declaring the first Air Force and Navy units ready for combat.

Congress is being asked to approve the purchase of increasing numbers of aircraft as flight testing accelerates -- from 30 planes this year to 43 in fiscal 2011 to 113 in fiscal 2015.

Thomas Christie, who was the Pentagon’s weapons tester from mid-2001 to early 2005, said there’s little likelihood lawmakers will try to cancel the program.

Other than Levin and John McCain of Arizona, the Senate armed services panel’s ranking Republican, “there aren’t that many” lawmakers “who get upset about” the increased cost, said Christie, who favors killing the program because of the rising costs.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a public policy research group in Arlington, Virginia, said the new cost estimates “are likely to make Congress think something has gone wrong with the F-35,” he said.

The projections are based on pessimistic assumptions about the program’s ability to hit revised targets for spending and scheduling, and aren’t driven by major technical problems. As such, they “probably won’t affect” lawmakers’ decisions, he said.