U.S. Defense Undersecretary Frank Kendall told reporters that the Pentagon is seeking congressional approval for a three-year block buy of F-35s in fiscal 2018.
By Official Navy Page from United States of America Andy Wolfe/U.S. Navy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Kendall predicted that such a block buy of more than 400 jets would allow for “double-digit” cost savings.
[thumb]http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/29/us-lockheed-fighter-idUSKBN0OE1SU20150529[/thumb]
For at least two years Kendall has been pushing this crazy idea to go to full production long before the Milestone C production decision (Apr 2019)
Mar 12, 2013 — Pentagon procurement chief Frank Kendall says he hopes to ramp up production of the single-engine, stealthy F-35, made by Lockheed Martin, but he will only do so if adequate progress is made in testing on the troubled program.
Well of course that \”adequate progress\” has not appeared. In fact there is a lot of development work to do, like fixing the–
-unreliable faulty engine (GAO)
-poor factory quality control (DODIG)
-structure, bulkhead cracks
-poor performance (some linked to faulty engine restrictions)
-lack of air-worthiness certificate
-poor CAS, limited to just 20 to 30 minutes time on station
-no gun, low bomb load
-sensor fusion doesn\’t fuse
-buggy software
-ALIS downlink inop
-shaky helmet image
-missing mission data loads
-shortage of maintainers (widely publicized)
-stealth skin care untested in field
-poor prototype reliability
-hundreds of planes will require retrofit (ten B\’s taking longer than expected)
-F35 require special hangars, power supply
-ships require months of expensive upgrades for basing
-no operational testing as required by law
-Milestone C production decision scheduled for April 2019, according to SAR. That\’s four years away, when development is (re-)scheduled to end.
There is no evidence that the costs of constructing prototype would decrease. They\’ve been constructing planes on an assembly line for seven years — the learning curve is flat. The labor hours per plane are at about 60,000 as compared with initial labor hours approaching 160,000 per plane. And as GAO has previously reported, increasing production while concurrently developing and testing creates risk and could result in additional cost growth in the future. It\’s happened before — remember why those laws were passed prohibiting this behavior? There are no appreciable unit cost savings left, which is in line with CAPE cost assessment in a GAO report here which (p.25) included an estimate that F-35 unit costs would increase 6-19% under any procurement plan.
Plus there would be the need to update these prototype planes, driving up cost. Retrofit alone, of hundreds of prototype aircraft, would suck a huge amount of personnel and funds from more productive pursuits. They have not been able to retrofit ten a/c for IOC, yet.