via Skiesmag.
Apex Industries Inc. is the newest Canadian industrial partner with Lockheed Martin on the F-35 Lightning II program. This agreement uses the machining expertise of Apex for aluminum metallic components, and they will produce structural parts that span the forward fuselage and wing. The agreement is a multi-year contract with all work being completed at Apex’s Moncton location in New Brunswick.How many times can you slice the pie?
The award to Apex is a recent example of how Lockheed Martin is partnering with Canadian Industry for the F-35 program. This opportunity is part of the more than $11 billion to be offered to Canadian Industry over 30 years and adds to the more than $500M in contracts to date. While supporting the program, Apex can utilize and mature their capabilities to capture more opportunities in the future. Currently, there are more than 34 Canadian suppliers on contract to the F-35 program.
“Lockheed Martin is honored Apex Industries is joining the F-35 Canadian Industrial team to bring value to the program as we increase our production rates and further reduce the cost of our aircraft,” said Keith Knotts, Lockheed Martin’s director of F-35 Business Development in Canada. “Apex’s contribution will be substantial F-35 machining work which is extremely important as the program continues to grow.”
Was it really necessary to bring this company online or is it simply part of the marketing campaign to woo Canada into the program? Don't laugh. The Canadian Department of National Defense just told their government that the cost of the plane could possibly reach 71 Billion dollars.
But to make sure I'm not picking on a Canadian company, can we say that any of the overseas production deals are necessary? Do they add value or do they add cost? I remember not too long ago Boeing tried a similar (but much smaller) scheme with the 787 and in the end they brought all production back to the US to gain efficiency and to save money.
This program has gone from being questionable, to being wildly expensive...to now being slimy. God help me but I'm going to parrot critics that I once lambasted.
This is looking like a Ponzi Scheme.
It's the same as distributing the US portion of the manufacturing to 46 states. It's horrendously inefficient, but efficiency has never been the goal: designing a program that can't be cancelled was always the number one goal.
ReplyDeleteThe contracts are awarded based on the tenants of the MOU. Those tenants have not changed.
ReplyDeleteThe JPO is REQUIRED to offer new contracts to any company from the MOU nations. They have no legal recourse to exclude Canadian companies since they are still a signatory to the MOU and are still paying for SDD.
that's not the point. the point is that this business model is probably a big reason why this plane is so unaffordable.
Deleteit also smacks of bribery. economic/industrial/technological transfer bribery but bribery none-the-less.
you're cool with me SpudmanWP but you have to admit this is some slimy shit.
It's lot more affordable vs the traditional form of offsets.
Deletebtw, Every fighter is built this way, ie subcontracted all over the place. Jumbo Jets are done the same way too. It's just advertised more for the F-35 as it's a big program that is gaining steam.
The F-35 is getting a lot of bad press and yes, some of it is deserved. These types of announcements are a way to let the customer know that they are getting a return on their investment and not just paying for the jet.
One of the sites I visit daily is the Defense-Aerospace Presser page. It is chuck full daily of contract announcements related to every program under the sun.
btw, Congress demands this type of work share so that a few states (Texas, California, etc) don't suck up most of the defense tax dollars.
bullshit. the F-18 might be sourced from a bunch of states but it doesn't come from almost every a nation in the free world. same with jumbo jets dude. now you're lying your ass off. i presented the 787 as a program that went down this road and ditched it for efficiency/money savings. if you're using Airbus as an example well thats bullshit too because European countries are subsidizing that plane.
Deletemore bullshit is the timing of this announcement. i was going to let the view of the DND go when they announced that worst case the F-35 would cost 71 Billion dollars but when i saw this it was too obvious to ignore.
Lockheed and the Program office are playing desperate.
i bet those bastards are praying for war so they can get a piece of the supplemental to ease the pain and increase procurement rates to try and lower costs artificially.
It's a chicken or egg question. Did the companies start to diversify subcontractors because of their business model or did they do it to make the program difficult to kill politically. I'm cynical so I think it's the latter.
DeleteIf a local politician is balking at the price, the subcontractor can send over a lobbyist to talk about the 'jobs' this program creates in the district. Even if the program is bad for the nation, it can be good for the district and Lockheed Martin. Parochial economic interests vs national defense.
ok. let me hit you with a worse case scenario. with manufacturing all over the world what happens if..say Turkey (i'm a fan of Turkish military so this isn't a slam...just a scenario) goes full Arab Spring and suddenly all those parts that are suppose to come from Turkey are cut off.
Deletewhat do we do then? how long will it take to find a replacement? how much will that add to the already outrageous price tag????
this is all nonsense. everyone knows it, why is it so hard to admit?
Each part comes from several different locations. There is not "single point of failure" for availability. If one closes, another expands or a new one opens.
DeleteIIRC, all single source parts are US or UK
SpudmanWP, you are so full of shit. The cost of opening up new facilities would be expensive as hell and add to the problem. You will obviously say anything to defend the F-35 even if it means saying shit you know not to be true.
DeleteSo you don't think there are contingency plans in place in case a company goes out of business and can no longer supply a part?
DeleteNo! I'm saying that any contingency plan would mean massive cost increases to a point where the plan is stupid and inefficient.
DeleteTo answer Solomon's worst case scenario of Turkey going under a full Arab Spring revolution, I honestly think defense contractors would respond by fighting, lying, cheating, stealing, and doing anything necessary to get the US military involved. I would not even put it passed them to plant false evidence for a pretense for war against the "Turkish rebels." They have too much invested in this for it to go south.
The sub-contractors include the start-up costs into the price of the parts through he projected life of the contract. If the company goes out of business, then they cannot recoup the outstanding costs.
DeleteThe next producer will do the same. Very little net increase in part cost.
that;s not true. many of the parts are bought on long lead items that will require serious initial investment whose cost will be passed along to the customer. additionally something is extremely slimy about the way that LM suddenly arrived at cost reductions.
Deletequite honestly if this was a private project the attorney general would be investigating it. as it is the GAO should perform a soup to nuts audit of the thing. the Commandant lied about the availability rate of the MV-22 and i don't doubt that he lied about a plane that he's willing to die in a ditch over.
They did not "suddenly" arrive at the reductions. The JPO announced over a year ago that there would be an extensive "top-down" re-evaluation of the O&S issues and that the report would be out "fall of 2013".... It's now the fall of 2013.
DeleteFrom an engineering point of view outsourcing is both a good and bad thing. Common items should almost always be outsourced, these are items like bolts, nuts, so on. Then you have unique products that are all manufactured the same way, so a gasket for the F-35 is shaped different from a gasket for F-18 but other than the mold being different it is the same gasket material. Outsourcing these products almost always makes sense.
ReplyDeleteWhen you start wandering into unique territory like a structural piece, of course you buy raw material from a supplier but finish machining shoudl always be done in house. The trillion dollar question is where do you draw the line?
As for spread loading DoD dollars being necessary that is just pure political. So what if California, Texas and Massachusetts recieve all the DoD dollars? That would just mean they would have to actually justify why the program really is important and that is actually is a good deal to the other 47 states.
There is a reason Chuck Spinney always refers to it as the Military Industrial Congresssional Complex. Congress plays just as an important role as the military and industry.
The F-35 program is not about selling a capable aircraft anymore. It is about selling jobs and soaking up money. It does this with one of the best propaganda machines ever built and shows every mark of bribery and corruption.
ReplyDeleteThe entire F-35 supply chain model is about selecting the best athlete who offers the best value. International partners have ponied up varying amounts of national treasure (UK the most) for a say in the requirements and development of the program AND the rights to have manufacturers/suppliers CONSIDERED (no more) in the competition mix. Other countries may buy their way in as FMS customers who require offsets, but only if it benefits everybody.
ReplyDeleteReally, the system in place is little more than the F-16 Multinational Program carried further.
The whole "spread the contracts for political purposes" lie (although I'm sure politicians think that way) is a contrivance of the anti-defense types like POGO. Contracts on a program of this scale not only require multiple supply sources (who compete for parts of the production shares above any guaranteed level)for a lot of parts, but simply the sheer number of components and specialties involved would be naturally distributed all over the US. Look at the distribution of work and it is still centered dollar-wise in the usual locations: where industry leaders or specialists are located. As you move out of those centers, the amount of work done at a location goes down. Frankly, I'm surprised there aren't 50 states and all the US territories with suppliers on any major aircraft program. The distribution of work has become the norm for several reasons. Just a few: 1. USG frowns on vertical integration in defense, which forces Primes to compete subcontracts as much as possible instead of just passing business to their own subsidiaries automatically. 2. USG requires percentages of the subcontracts to go to disadvantaged/minority-owned businesses which are everywhere. 3. USG requires a percentage of work to go to small-businesses and those are everywhere as well 4. As the aerospace industry shrank, companies in low-cost living areas leveraged their affordability to make their bids more attractive, driving less competitive companies in big metro areas out of the sector or even out of business--or companies moved to low-cost of living areas as a survival tactic in the first place.
Pretty much the only reason the defense contractors started highlighting the details of their diverse supplier networks was because the wankers (the kind of folks who believe there really is a 'Military-Industrial Complex') who want more social spending or just less defense spending started commissioning faux'd-up hit-piece 'studies' claiming defense jobs weren't that big of a deal to the economy or export balance. It was a defensive move. I saw it happen to the B-2, used as a tactic second only to the 'passé cold-war weapon' canard to cut the buy of those aircraft. In any case, the wide supplier network came first, talking about it came about second.
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DeleteThe F-35 is not the same as the F-16 Multinational Program because the F-16 was a fully developed warplane before we started selling the work for it and that makes all the difference. The F-35 is no where near completing its development cycle, yet here we are building a bunch of mistake jets and selling work on an incomplete aircraft. The costs to make the necessary changes in the production line are so high it is causing the US to gut its larger forces in order to save the jobs that this program has created. This is not helping the country or the armed forces. In fact, this is harming us deeply and risks causing long term financial damage and loss of perishable skills.
DeleteYou've made not one factually correct statement.
DeleteRE: "The F-35 is not the same as the F-16 Multinational Program because the F-16 was a fully developed warplane before we started selling the work for it and that makes all the difference.
No.
Per GAO (http://www.gao.gov/products/PSAD-79-63, Opening sentence) "The multinational F-16 aircraft program requires the United States to place contracts totalling about $1.6 billion (January 1975 dollars) with producers in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway."
RE: "The F-35 is no where near completing its development cycle, yet here we are building a bunch of mistake jets and selling work on an incomplete aircraft. The costs to make the necessary changes in the production line are so high it is causing the US to gut its larger forces in order to save the jobs that this program has created."
No.
The F-35 is at least as and probably more mature relative to its baseline than the F-16 was at the same point in production, and here I get to mostly copy/paste a point I made on an earlier thread here (at Sol's):
There were 291 F-16 Block 1 and 5 deliveries before the first 'nominally' useful Block 10 was built. To keep perspective, the YF-16's first flight (official) was Feb 74, and the first definitive and fully capable Block 30/32 F-16s for the US first flew Feb 87. Counting all partner nation deliveries, about 1800(!!!) F-16s were delivered before the fully capable Block 30/32s. Until the Block 30, all the capabilities of the F-16 were less than what was envisioned by the planners (just not the so-called 'Reformers'). The Block 30s were the first F-16s with full Beyond Visual Range-engagement and night/precision ground/maritime attack capabilities. First with full AIM-7/AMRAAM/AGM-65D/HARM capabilities. First with Seek Talk secure voice comm, etc.
Fielding 1800 aircraft before you reach a 'baseline' in Block 30/32? 13 YEARS after first flight? --Now THAT is 'concurrent development'.
There will be fewer aircraft fielded before Block 3F than the F-16 had for Block 15/20. I've repeatedly illustrated over at my place that the actual costs are tracking far closer to LM's projections, even with the mods to bring early jets up to final configuration. The BS CAPE estimates have shown themselves to be consistently and erroneously inflated to say the least.
Believe what you want, but the enemy of ALL defense spending is the Social Spending-Entitlement Complex. It is not that the F-35 is eating the DoD Budget and the DoD is eating up the total budget. It is the continuing growth of the so-called 'non-discretionary' piece of the pie eating into the so-called 'discretionary' piece. I say cut all unearned entitlement spending before you cut anything else. That is the part that needs a 'haircut'. It can be done. Too bad we'll probably keep enabling our gutless legislators in avoiding the responsibility.
Oh yeah, "We're screwed" but it isn't by defense spending.
(whoops completely missed this)
DeleteThe F-16 conducted its first flight in January 1974 and it was very well developed before we started selling the work on it, considering how fast developing aircraft was back then. The F-35 is NOT and never will be the new F-16.
Bottomline: not one of those F-35s is combat ready, rendering all of your points completely useless. None of them can do combat, none of them have fully functional mission systems. Billions wasted on nothing we can use with billion more projected...
I come back here months later to copy something I wrote for use someplace else and I find a snarky retort left 2 days later. Notice my use of "(official)" for first flight. Everybody knows the story about the inadvertent first flight, when the test pilot did a high speed taxi test with a planned hop into ground effect (though most don't know about the 'hop' part) in January. I was making the timeline shorter by going with the official date. I got a bottom line for you, almost every, if not all of the 100+ F-35 production jets now rolled out will be getting the 3F software and made combat capable. The fact that you are one of J.R. Pierce's "Novices in mathematics, science, or engineering [who] are forever demanding infallible, universal, mechanical methods for solving problems" is your own personal problem. Sleep well, there's going to be F-35s over your head for the next 40 years or so.
Deletejustify the expense of the airplane. justify losing carriers, entire squadrons and battalions to pay for this bird.
Deletejustify the cost and then i might listen. but i have to admit you're going to have to come up with better arguments then the talk about how hard science and engineering comes with delays naturally.