'Just Science Fiction' Found Unsustainable

An F-35 breaking the sound barrier

National Defense, Watchdog Calls Projected F-35 Sustainment Costs ‘Unaffordable’

Projected sustainment costs for the F-35 joint strike fighter are unaffordable, and the problem will only get worse if no further action is taken, the Government Accountability Office warned in a new report released July 7.

Reducing such costs must be a top priority, the watchdog said in its study, “F-35 Sustainment: DoD Needs to Cut Billions in Estimated Costs to Achieve Affordability.”

The joint strike fighter is the largest acquisition project in the history of the Defense Department, with an estimated sustainment price tag of more than $1 trillion over the life of the program. The military plans to buy nearly 2,500 of the jets. The Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy are buying the A, B and C variants of the aircraft, respectively.

“The military services collectively face tens of billions of dollars in sustainment costs that they project will be unaffordable,” according to the report.

The cost to operate the platform can be as high as $38,000 per flying hour, according to estimates from the F-35 Joint Program Office.

Prime contractor Lockheed Martin has invested nearly $400 million dollars to reduce lifecycle sustainment costs, according to Greg Ulmer, the company’s executive vice president for aeronautics.

The GAO warned that affordability will only get worse without additional actions.

If the Air Force doesn’t reduce the estimated annual cost per tail by about 47 percent by 2036, it will exceed its sustainment budget by about $4.4 billion, the study said. The Marine Corps will need to reduce annual sustainment costs per F-35B by 26 percent and the Navy must cut F-35C annual sustainment costs by 24 percent to meet affordability constraints in the mid-2030s, it added.

The F-35 Joint Program Office created a Directorate of Affordability and an Affordability War Room, which reportedly found $68 billion in lifecycle cost savings. However, cost assessment and program evaluation officials told the GAO that they have not verified the savings calculation.

“According to several DoD officials, even if all of the $68 billion in cost avoidance were achieved, that would represent only a fraction of the cost reductions needed to reduce the program’s sustainment costs and achieve the services’ affordability constraints,” the GAO report said.

The naval version 

A friend of mind who worked on the naval version of the JSF at Patuxent River Naval Air Station said that when it was being developed, the office nickname was "Just Science Fiction", and said he didn't expect to see it deployed by the time he retired (I think he beat it out of the door). But, if money is no object, it's a hell of an airplane; Defense News,  Lockheed’s F-35 topples competition in Swiss fighter contest

Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter has emerged victorious in Switzerland’s $6.5 billion fighter competition, beating out entrants from Eurofighter, Dassault and Boeing.

Over the course of the program, Switzerland plans to spend up to 6 billion Swiss francs (U.S. $6.5 billion) to buy 36 F-35A conventional-takeoff-and-landing models to replace its aging Hornet fleet, the government announced Wednesday.

I must say, they look pretty impressive in the air. For $38,000 an hour, they should.