{"id":1792,"date":"2019-04-23T21:56:44","date_gmt":"2019-04-23T18:56:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=1792"},"modified":"2019-04-23T23:26:44","modified_gmt":"2019-04-23T20:26:44","slug":"lockheeds-f-35-1-5-trillion-operational-cost-just-grew-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=1792","title":{"rendered":"Lockheed\u2019s F-35 $1.5 Trillion Operational Cost Just Grew – Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently, the Pentagon prefers to dole out information about costs of the F-35 program in portions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"USAF<\/a>

USAF Lockheeds F-35 Lightning II (CC BY 2.0 \/ Heath Cajandig)<\/p><\/div>\n

Lambasting Lockheed Martin’s F-35 multirole fighter for\u00a0its cost has become almost pass\u00e9 at\u00a0this point. With its $1.5 trillion price tag, criticizing it is about\u00a0as fun as\u00a0kicking a broken, bleeding opponent. Yet it just won’t give up: the program cost just keeps rising, with\u00a0no end in\u00a0sight.<\/p>\n

The thing is, the $1.5 trillion figure is separated into\u00a0several uneven segments. The actual plane design cost (known as “research, development, test and evaluation”) is a humble $55.1 billion. Procurement costs are estimated at $319 billion, which is fair enough, considering warplanes are expensive toys in\u00a0general. A small $5 billion fraction of\u00a0the program cost goes to\u00a0military construction\u00a0\u2014 obviously, one needs facilities for\u00a0the new plane fleet.<\/p>\n

Enter operations and sustainment from\u00a02011 to\u00a02077, a mammoth $1.1238 trillion, estimated in\u00a02015 dollars. Already a big number, it just got bigger\u00a0\u2014 by $73 billion, no less, which is more than\u00a0the entire cost of\u00a0research and development. So, now it’s $1.196 trillion.<\/p>\n

The number comes from\u00a0the Pentagon’s latest Selected Acquisition Report (SAR), an annual cost assessment of\u00a0major projects, Bloomberg reported Monday. Where does the cost increase come from? Well, for\u00a0the first time in\u00a0the plane’s history, the Pentagon accounted for\u00a0the upcoming set of\u00a0modifications and upgrades that should replace the current “Block 3F” F-35 firmware version with\u00a0the newer “Block 4” version, with “significantly expanded maritime strike, air-to-ground capabilities and air-to-air lethality,” according to\u00a0the National Interest.<\/p>\n

“Ensuring our Block 4 efforts are captured in\u00a0our acquisition baseline and now in\u00a0our SAR help us to\u00a0provide full transparency and status on\u00a0our F-35 modernization progress,” the Pentagon’s F-35 program office said in\u00a0a statement, according to\u00a0Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

Translated into\u00a0common English, this arguably means the Pentagon withheld the total cost of\u00a0the project\u00a0\u2014 likely to\u00a0make the number easier for\u00a0lawmakers to\u00a0swallow\u00a0\u2014 not unlike\u00a0a teenager who tells his dad he crashed the car and then, after\u00a0dad pops a sedative, adds the information that he crashed it into\u00a0a De Beers outlet window.<\/p>\n

In similar fashion, the Defense Department rushes to\u00a0calm down\u00a0the bewildered reader, saying the program still “remains within\u00a0all cost, schedule and performance thresholds and continues to\u00a0make steady progress.”<\/p>\n

The Pentagon’s F-35 program office assures lawmakers it “is committed to\u00a0the delivery of\u00a0cost-effective warfighting capability across\u00a0all areas of\u00a0the program.”<\/p>\n

It is unlikely, however, that lawmakers, joined by\u00a0two of\u00a0the Pentagon’s top brass\u00a0\u2014 who collectively take the role of\u00a0the enraged dad whose car just got totaled\u00a0\u2014 will let it slide. Both Pentagon acquisition chief Ellen Lord and Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan have previously pushed the program office and Lockheed Martin to\u00a0reduce the ridiculous projected operations and support costs, and the new increase, coming despite\u00a0assurances of\u00a0cost reductions on\u00a0Lockheed’s side, will spark renewed scrutiny, Bloomberg says.<\/p>\n

The Pentagon has already cut its procurement plans for\u00a02021 by\u00a017 F-35s, down\u00a0to only 81 units. According to\u00a0the SAR, “projected F-35 sustainment outlays based upon\u00a0given planned fleet growth will strain future service operations and support budgets.”<\/p>\n

Blaming the expenses on Lockheed, the Pentagon’s report urges the contractor to “embrace much-needed supply chain management affordability initiatives, optimize priorities across the supply chain for spare and new production parts.”<\/p>\n

Responding to the call, Lockheed readily stated it “is taking aggressive action to build supply chain capacity, reduce supply chain costs and improve parts availability to help drive sustainment costs down while enhancing readiness,” according to an email by company spokeswoman Carolyn Nelson.<\/p>\n

One can only imagine how much more expensive the program will become after all that is done, however.<\/p>\n

Source:<\/strong> sputniknews.com<\/a> (Military & Intelligence)\u00a0 – 23.04.2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, the Pentagon prefers to dole out information about costs of the F-35 program in portions. Lambasting Lockheed Martin’s F-35 multirole fighter for\u00a0its cost has become almost pass\u00e9 at\u00a0this point. With its $1.5 trillion...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,1675,1670,36,1725,7,31,18],"tags":[2173,303,653,2174,2172,2171,284,2175],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1792"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1796,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1792\/revisions\/1796"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}