The new F-35 program executive officer, U.S. Navy vice admiral Mat Winter, said his office
is exploring the option of leaving 108 aircraft in their current state because the funds to
upgrade them to the fully combat-capable configuration would threaten the Air Force's plans to
ramp up production in the coming years.
These are most likely the same 108 aircraft the Air Force reportedly needed to upgrade
earlier in 2017.
Without being retrofitted, these aircraft would become "concurrency orphans" — airplanes
left behind in the acquisition cycle after the services purchased them before finishing
the development process.
Pentagon decided to overlap the development and testing of the program with the production.
That overlap is what is known as concurrency.
In this video, Defense Updates analyses why 108 F35s may never be combat capable & 89
more may have the same fate?
The danger of purchasing hundreds of aircraft before a program produced a stable and fully
tested design has been well known for years.
Concurrency, as a RAND Corporation analyst explained in testimony before the House Committee
on Government Reform on May 10, 2000, is rooted "in the politics of the acquisition process."
As Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has pointed out before, this practice serves
to limit the available political options for restructuring programs experiencing significant
test failures or cost overruns.
When the Pentagon makes substantial procurement commitments well before development or testing
is complete, it severely increases the political costs of cancelling the program due to all
the money already invested and all the jobs already created.
Dr. Michael Gilmore, the now-retired director of operational test and evaluation, warned
that the services would likely have to send aircraft back to the maintenance depots for
modification.
The list of modifications is already quite extensive.
The Air Force lists 213 change items in its 2018 budget request.
The modifications required go far beyond mere software upgrades.
They include serious structural upgrades including fixes to the landing gear, ejection seats
and the aircraft's bulkhead structures.
Some aircraft would have to undergo this process several times before they could be in the
full combat configuration.
The cost to upgrade the earlier generation aircraft must be much higher than what is
being publicly reported if the Pentagon has deemed it cheaper to purchase more aircraft.
Left unsaid so far is what will become of the 81 F-35s purchased by the Marine Corps
and Navy during that same period.
If they are left in their current state, nearly 200 F-35s might permanently remain unready
for combat because the Pentagon would rather buy new aircraft than upgrade the ones the
American people have already paid for.
The Marine Corps controversially declared Initial Operational Capability with Block
2B aircraft in 2015.
But this version is hardly ready for combat.
The Pentagon's testing office has repeatedly said that any pilots flying Block 2B F-35s
who find themselves in a combat situation would "need to avoid threat engagement and
would require augmentation by other friendly forces."
In other words, the 108 Air Force F-35s in question, or any of the Block 2B aircraft,
would need to run away from a fight and have other aircraft come to their rescue.
What makes this particularly galling is the aircraft that would be left behind by such
a scheme were the most expensive F-35s purchased so far.
In total, Congress has authorized—and the Pentagon has spent—nearly $40 billion purchasing
approximately 189 F-35s (108 for Airfare and 81 for Marine Corps) that, in their current
configuration, will never be able to perform the way they were expected
With the current process, the services will have nearly 800 F-35s either on hand or in
the manufacturing pipeline before the design is fully proven through testing under the
current plans.
Upgrades are unusually complex for the F-35 because of the design process being used for
the program.
The program is developing the F-35 in several phases, called blocks.
Each block has more capabilities than the earlier version.
According to the Lockheed Martin website, Block 1A/1B combined basic training capabilities
with some security enhancements.
Block 2A remained a training version, with the ability to share data between aircraft.
Blocks 2B and 3I are the first versions with any combat capabilities.
The only significant difference between 2B and 3I is the aircraft's computer processor.
The first version expected to have full combat capabilities is Block 3F.
This version has yet to be completed and is only expected to begin realistic combat testing
next year in 2018.
The Pentagon began the F 35 program in 2001 with an aim to develop a cost effective replacement
for the U.S. military's F 15, F 16, F 18 Fighters, reconnaissance aircrafts as well
as A10 close air support warplanes.
But things haven't gone that way.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is the most expensive procurement program in Pentagon
history.
It's been plagued by schedule delays, gross cost overruns, and a slew of underwhelming
performance reviews.
It has been much criticized inside and outside government, in the U.S. and in allied countries.
The stealthy fighter jet's costs have more than doubled from initial estimates.
The Pentagon and Lockheed Martin have been assuring s that the price tag for the F-35
is on its way down.
Much of that effort was part of the campaign to convince Congress to approve the Economic
Order Quantity, or multiple-year block buy of F-35 components.
They claimed that would lead to even more cost savings.
But it's difficult to be enthusiastic about the prospect of saving $2 billion when the
program could potentially have wasted $40 billion.
On Dec. 12, 2016, the then president-elect Donald Trump asserted that F-35 unit cost
was "out of control" through Twitter and he was absolutely right.
It remains to be seen how he deals with the situation now.
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