Fort Worth, Texas - It was wheels up Wednesday morning for Lockheed Martin's second F-35A Lightning II production jet delivery in a week. Maj. Joseph T. "OD" Bachmann (Marine Corps) piloted the aircraft, known as AF-8, to Eglin Air Force Base where it arrived at 11:50 a.m. CDT. AF-8 joins AF-9 which Lockheed Martin delivered to the 33rd Fighter Wing last Thursday. The jets will be used for training F-35 pilots and maintainers who are slated to begin course work at the base's new F-35 Integrated Training Center this fall. AF-8 is the eighth F-35 to be delivered in 2011.I simply posted the pic and moved on.
Big mistake.
Production on the F-35 has ramped up, the school house is built and fully staffed, the Marine Corps is already planning for early IOC and the critics are left whimpering in a corner.
This already has been a great week for the F-35.
The only reason they delivered two in one week is because AF8 is almost a month late and both planes are about $40M each over budget because of production problems. It's like everything else about the program, it's important progress but it's late and way over budget.
ReplyDeleteAlso we're talking about non combat ready planes for training that are planned to have to be modified before actual front line service and are from an unproven production process. In any other program these would be called YF35s
no they wouldn't. they were built and designed for the school house.
ReplyDeletewow. your cost points are off....your schedule is off....i can see another issue developing here.
be careful. APA talking points are not appreciated on my blog. you have plenty of alternative sites in which to spout your venom.
find those. it won't be tolerated here.
well BB may have a point that its there for training and not fully combat ready but at this stage we dont need combat ready planes. we need platforms to train pilots on their use (which is the point of the many aircraft coming off the production line). also this aircraft is vastly different than other fights produced en masse. the only stealth aircraft we have built were very small numbers (the F22 stopped at ~150 or so, cant remember the real number), theres only ~20 B2s and not too many F117s. making an advanced stealth figther with so many capabilities will take a manufacturing learning curve and there may be stumbles along the way but the reward will be an efficient system of delivering mission capable platforms that will defend american interests for 30+ years. with EVERY plane that comes off that line, lessons are learned for the next plane, and so by the time the subsequent blocks start rolling off with the upgraded software and mission capable aircraft, they will be cheaper, faster built and lethal.
ReplyDeleteRef cost, the over run is $1.15B on the first 28 or about $41M a plane. Source is Flightglobal who says it comes from the F-35 program office (the $771M number does not include over runs absorbed by LM and P&W but these are still cost over runs).
ReplyDeleteRef delay: LM was promising delivery of AF-8 in June on their own website as late as 6 June. So even if you assume they meant the last week of June, AF-8 is about three to four weeks late. I don't think describing 3-4 weeks as "almost a month" is a stretch.
Flightglobal cost article is here: http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2011/07/15/359508/f-35-lrip-overrun-value-raised-to-1.15b.html
well if you look at the cost overruns of every other major weapon system, they have come in cost over runs and no one are pushing so hard for their ending, i mean the LCS is an overblow piece of shit, with almost no combat power, just a floating deck gun and minor air defense abilities, and its falling apart and while some have called for its cancellation, very low. the F35 is one of the most advanced jets in the world, yes more expensive but sometimes it happens when going into unknown territory, and we are trying to kill it? also sol posted similar rumblings about the F16 and how it was mauled as being over budget and same old shit and its become the mainstay fighter of western democracies. also the budgets of brand new F16s or the stealth F15s with all the bells and whistles still doesnt compare to the 35 but comes close in price in todays dollars.
ReplyDelete@Joe
ReplyDeleteI think your comments about the F-35 are pretty accurate but the mandate of the F-35 was not to produce a super high tech, envelope pushing fighter. The mandate of the program was to produce an affordable strike fighter to fill the fighter gap and it is failing in this precisely because, as you say, it is pushing into unknown territory.
You've already mentioned the F-22 and the B-2: the F-35 won't be cancelled any more than they were but F-35 production rates and runs will be chopped for exactly the same reasons they were for those programs: huge cost over runs and long program delays.
BTW: compared to how I feel about the LCS, I love the F-35.
BBs perception of the 'cost overruns' play fast and loose with the amortization. As I said at my place after hearing of Sweetman doing the same thing:
ReplyDeleteHonestly, what brand of stupid do you have to sniff to try to amortize the total 'bill' for re-engineering production capability for the entire fleet against just the first 31 aircraft?
Sweetman knows better. Don't know about BB.
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ReplyDeleteAlmost forgot. When I did the weekly Commissary Run with The Chief there was an F-35 working the pattern. Sweet.
ReplyDelete(Worst typos corrected)
beyond awesome...but stay tuned....i love your latest post...
ReplyDeleteYou don't amortize rework, you don't amortize the time and expense of screwing with parts that don't fit, you don't amortize the cost of cannibalizing aircraft upstream on the line to fix aircraft downstream on the production line, you don't amortize screaming at a supplier because his tolerances are off and that's all we're talking about in the $1.15B
ReplyDeleteAll the expenses associated with weight saving re-design are R&D expenses. These can be reasonably amortized over a production run but these aren't in the $1.15B: they are reflected in the huge over runs in R&D costs. If you have evidence otherwise, please share.
There is a difference between re-work and re-engineering. Re-engineering gets you new capability and/or greater efficiency but that's not what we're talking about here. We're just talking about trying to get back to the baseline capability that was promised and which we were told was already delivered: that's why the $1.15B is re-work, not re-engineering, and that's why it's not correct to amortize it.
no we aren't APA boy.
ReplyDeleteyou're bastardizing two different conversations and now you're busted....besides finally tracking your IP address.
you never give up do you?
If by "two different conversations" you mean that I went and read SMSgt's post on his blog (which you referenced before I replied) yes, you are correct. I'm not sure how it is bad that I took the time to read his entire argument before replying to his point.
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ReplyDeleteMan! (I can't type this AM.)
ReplyDeleteLet's stay specific to what is in the 'bill' per DEW line's original post (CAPS mine):
"The $771 million reflects the IMPACT of the 2004 weight reduction redesign ON THE LOCKHEED'S PRODUCTION SYSTEM, the company said. The redesign carved off thousands of pounds of excess weight, but suppliers could not keep up with the flow of design changes. That led to late delivery of parts, then extra labour hours to install them outside of the normal manufacturing sequence, the company said.
As the F-35 continues to be developed even as the first production models are delivered, the $771 million bill also includes the COST of FUTURE MODIFICATIONS to make the aircraft standard with jets delivered after the development phase ends in 2016."
So on the one hand that $771M is for changes to the production system impacted by the extensive weight reduction redesign, and on the other hand (almost certainly a minor) part of the $771M has not yet been incurred because it is future work (that-oh by the way- may be less). Use of the $1.15B figure includes costs eaten by not only LM but by P&W on the engine side, which also BTW is managed separately (from the F-35 itself) by the Government.
The Illiterati in this country are going to be the death of us.
BTW, Does BB1984 allude to the reactivation of the Iowa Class BBs?
ReplyDeleteThere's another point (concerning deliveries) I'd like to make. When the program decided to add two aircraft to the test fleet at Edwards AFB, those planes were diverted from the schoolhouse. This did two things. It delayed the first two aircraft in the existing schedule because they had to be instrumented and it required accelerating the next two (or more depending on the planned build sequence) to get them to the school house as early as possible. "Late is Late" - but were they late because of program performance shortfalls or late because of an over-ambitious schedule? I don't know - and I guess no one else here does either. We also don't know if the schoolhouse was ready to maximize the use of the airplanes once delivered so we don't know the impact. Were te planes delayed for the schoolhouse's readiness? I can't get excited about a couple-week slip from the replanned schedule.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to argue that the cost over run is a one time expense caused by the re-design and thus won't effect subsequent batches you're on much more solid ground but the cost driver even in the quote you used "extra labour hours to install them outside of the normal manufacturing sequence" is still just inefficient production and I can't see amortizing that. Also how can you not blame the need for a re-design in the first place, and any costs coming from it, on LM? It's not like VTOL was a new requirement that meant unexpected changes.
ReplyDeleteRef the $1.15B including P&W cost over runs too, yes it absolutely does. Should that part be blamed on LM? Probably not, but it is still part of the F-35 cost over run. I didn't apportion blame between LM, P&W and the Pentagon and I'm sure there's plenty to go around. Truthfully in general I blame the USAF for the F-35's problems more than LM.
Ref one month late, true it's not a big deal in the scheme of things. As I've said before it bothers me more because of the program management implications of LM's inability on June 6th to tell me what is going to happen by the end of June than it does because delivery a few weeks late is going to hurt anything.
"BB1984" is something random from using a Google login, no Iowa connection.
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ReplyDeleteRE: The part about
ReplyDelete"The redesign carved off thousands of pounds of excess weight, but suppliers could not keep up with the flow of design changes. That led to late delivery of parts, then extra labour hours to install them outside of the normal manufacturing sequence, the company said."
--is an explanatory statement explaining what the redesign in the preceding sentence was all about.
I don't fault you for mistakenly thinking what I believe you were intentionally led to believe. the only remaining part of the 'bill' not yet incurred are the retrofit mods that will be performed in the future.
BTW: I believe not having to retrofit early aircraft deliveries for one reason or another is the exception to the rule. Can't think of a recent fighter program that hasn't done it. And contractors eating costs that aren't allowed to be passed along to the Customer is the norm.