Joint Fighter Faces Critical Period

[unhappycamper]

Joint Fighter Faces Critical Period
March 15, 2010
American Forces Press Service|by John J. Kruzel

Contracting for the F-35 Lightning II joint strike fighter, touted as the future backbone of U.S. air superiority, must be brought in line with budget realities to make the aircraft affordable again, a defense official said in March here.

Key manufacturing and testing milestones are expected for the fighter between now and 2011, said Ashton B. Carter, the undersecretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"The next two years will be critical ones for the joint strike fighter," Mr. Carter said, "with the delivery of test aircraft, ... completion and analysis of hundreds of test flights, and commencement of flight training."

Pentagon and Defense industry officials made efforts last week to explain adjustments made in the wake of a Defense Department study last year that found the development phase of

~snip~

"This schedule and cost trend was unacceptable for the taxpayers of the U.S. and for the other eight nations," he said. "The schedule slip was estimated at 30 months in the development program. The cost of the airplanes had grown since 2002, and for a variety of reasons, the JSF program would breach the Nunn-McCurdy threshold."

The Nunn-McCurdy law requires that Congress be notified of a cost growth of more than 15 percent in a program. It also calls for cancellation of programs for which total cost grew by more than 25 percent over the original estimate.


Rest of article about this $239 million dollar wonder at: http://www.military.com/news/article/air-force-news/joint-fighter-faces-critical-period.html



unhappycamper comment: The Nunn-McCurdy law provision for cancellation of projects 25 percent over the original estimate is frequently ignored. Prior to the F-35, the most recent example that comes to mind is the Littoral Combat Ships fiasco. LCS #1, Freedom, was scheduled to cost $200 million dollars; it was around $500+ million dollars as delivered. LCS #2, Independence, cost $704 million dollars delivered.

[msongs]

1. another scam from corporate welfare - make em meet the original bid or nothing nt