March 19, 2010
Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 jet fighter, the Pentagon’s most expensive program, has risen about 62 percent in cost and is four years behind schedule, according to Pentagon documents and new data.
Production of the airplane was projected to cost an estimated $143 billion for 2,852 aircraft when it began in 2002. The Department of Defense now says it will cost as much as $232 billion for 2,443 aircraft when calculated in 2002 dollars, according to figures released today.
Development and testing, originally to be finished in March 2012, won’t be done until April 2016, the documents say. Full production of the planes also has been delayed four years from what was once an April 2012 date.
The delays and cost growth stem from a wing redesign, inefficient production, delays in parts deliveries by suppliers and test problems, according to Lockheed Martin, Congress’s Government Accountability Office and Pentagon officials.
“We are clearly not comfortable with the program’s cost growth and development delay,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said in an e-mail today. That is why Defense Secretary Robert Gates “made the difficult choice to dramatically restructure the program and he did so earlier than normal.”
‘Successful Aircraft’
Still, “There is nothing broken with the aircraft development,” and the plane “will be a very capable, successful aircraft,” Morrell said.
While a new GAO report gives the Pentagon credit for taking corrective measures, it said that under the current plan through 2014 the military plans to buy as many as 307 aircraft at an estimated cost of $58.2 billion “before development flight test is completed.”
“Risks are manifold -- mounting cost and schedule pressure, complex, extensive and unproven software requirements and a nascent, very aggressive test program that continues to experience significant delays,” the GAO said. “Given all these challenges, moving forward with the current plan for ramping up production does not seen prudent.”
Lockheed Martin spokesman Chris Geisel said in an e-mail, “There are several factors that have extended the program since 2001. When all of these are integrated, it is difficult to provide an exact comparison of original milestones to current program projections.”
The biggest factor was a 2004 decision for a wing redesign of the Marine Corps’ short-takeoff and vertical landing version to reduce the weight by more than 3,500 pounds, Geisel said.
Retooling and Redesign
“Every part of the aircraft was reanalyzed,” Geisel said. The redesign required retooling and distribution of 400,000 drawings to subcontractors, he said.
Delays by parts suppliers added two years to the production timetable and $5 billion to the cost, the Pentagon said in 2004.
The F-35 is designed for missions including bombing and air-to-air combat, and it will be used by the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. It will replace such aircraft as the F-16 and A-10 and Harrier aircraft flown by the Marines and the U.K.
The program’s delays are being closely watched by eight partner nations contributing $4.4 billion of their own funds for development, including the U.K., Turkey, Italy, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. The allies plan to purchase at least 730 aircraft after Lockheed Martin enters full production.
Another factor is the F-35’s promise of 80 percent common parts to keep costs down for the three versions under development, Morrell said.
Three Variants
“Everyone counted on the three variants having more commonality in the original estimates than they do in the reality of building them,” he said.
The Air Force and Navy plan to declare their first combat- ready squadrons in 2016. That’s five years behind an original June 2011 Air Force date and four after the April 2012 Navy goal, according to program documents listing original milestones. The Marine Corps’s April 2012 date is two years off the original schedule.
The Defense Contract Management Agency in a November report said the program was revising the fifth version of its flight test schedule.
In spite of the cost growth and four-year delay “there is no alternative for the plane,” said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the industry-funded Lexington Institute in Arlington, Virginia.
“It is too late to start over because Cold War planes are getting old and there is no reason to believe that if we did start over, the results would be better,” Thompson said. “The Pentagon has got to bite the bullet and make this program produce.”
Lockheed Martin shares rose 65 cents to $86.59 in composite trading at 2:40 p.m. on the New York Stock Exchange. Shares have increased almost 27 percent in the last 12 months.
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