via The Chicago Tribune.
WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea is nearing a decision to buy some Lockheed Martin Corp F-35 fighter jets, but will likely keep its options open for a limited purchase of Boeing Co's F-15, sources familiar with the country's fighter competition said on Wednesday.Read the entire article here.
South Korean officials could announce their plans as early as November to secure the funding needed to ensure initial deliveries of the F-35 in 2017, according to multiple sources who were not authorized to speak publicly. They cautioned that the decisions were not yet final, and an announcement could still be postponed if the decision-making process hits a snag.
South Korea's fighter competition has been closely watched given its importance to Boeing, which is keen to extend its F-15 production line beyond 2016, and to Lockheed, which is trying to drive down the price of the F-35 by securing more buyers.
Boeing's new F-15 Silent Eagle model was the only bid that came in under South Korea's budget cap of 8.3 trillion won ($7.2 billion). However, Seoul last month rejected that offer and said it needed a fifth-generation warplane that is nearly invisible to enemy radar - a move widely seen as an endorsement of the F-35.
Europe's Eurofighter also plans to bid again for the order, but the head of Europe's EADS acknowledged last month that the company faced a tough battle against its U.S. rivals.
South Korean officials have said they are examining a mixed procurement approach that could help Seoul maintain sufficient numbers of fighters in its fleet if the F-35 runs into further delays. They are also looking at scaling back the size of the order to 40 or 50 planes.
A few of my takeaways.
1. We're looking at another nation that is reducing the size of its F-35 purchase. Interesting. The death spiral is still here.
2. The F-15 Silent Eagle is still in the running and a split buy tells me that further delays in the F-35 are being anticipated.
3. I monitor S. Korean news and this is turning into a scandal. I don't know if this is true but if it is and they're going to make an announcement of buying the F-35 then someone is going to go to jail. The S. Koreans have a very dim view of public corruption. I wish we did.
I wonder how many cushy jobs Lockheed Martin promised to get the Korean Air Force onboard? I wonder how many bribes were paid? I wonder if there is anything that corporation won't do to get this modern day Dodo bird across the finish line.
The real issue is money. This year's funding for F-X III will be clawed back as unspent, and the military requires a parliamentary re-authorization to get that money back for 2021 time period, but the opposition party which backs the Silent Eagle already vowed to reject any additional funding beyond originally approved and is launching a parliamentary investigation into the Silent Eagle vote down. So the F-X is going nowhere, because the additional funding needed to buy something other than the Silent Eagle is not coming forth and the military officials will be forced to improvise within the budget.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, a counter-stealth radar acquisition project is being pushed forward, to be able to counter any Chinese/Japanese stealth jets with the combination of counter-stealth radar and SAMs, in the absence of new jet fighters. The army too is offering to assume the strategic bombing role of the air force with its missile force to lesson the burden of the air force.
What's so sad about this whole fiasco is that the ROK Navy just announced a 53 warship building plan in the next 10 year period(And this does not include 2 carriers), which is not subject to same level of scrutiny because those ships are being built locally. So the ROKAF will be in a perpetual purgatory until it gets its own local platform(KFX) that would win them easy funding.
Well, the F-35 LRIP8(FY2014) could lose 6 ~ 7 US orders from the lot, 4~5 from USAF, 1 from USMC, and 1 from USN. That would once again drive up the cost. The US would desperately seek to replace this cut with international orders.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.defensenews.com/article/20131023/DEFREG02/310230030/Sequester-Could-Delay-Four-Five-USAF-F-35-Purchases
One distinctive possibility is that the Korean Defense Ministry officials who has taken over the F-X project may seek to reduce the offset value in exchange for a price cut. The current bid terms requires a 50% offset in terms of work share and technology transfer, but the Korean aerospace contractors already vowed to sit out as they consider Lockheed's work outsourcing term unworkable and undesirable, while the ADD developing the KFX declared they already had 90% of technology needed for the KFX project and would now seek remaining 10% from non-US vendors including EJ200 engines from Rolls-Royce. Accordingly, the pressure to bring back some of bread crumbs home has greatly diminished.
Would the ROKAF even bother with the Silent Eagle?
ReplyDeleteWhy not just order a few more F-15Ks? No headaches due to developmental delays and they undoubtedly get to save a few bucks... Which will be needed to cover the inevitable cost over runs of the JSF.
@ Doug Allen
Delete> Would the ROKAF even bother with the Silent Eagle?
Yes. According to the ongoing Parliamentary Review, the entire staff of the ROKAF generals voted to back the Silent Eagle a few days prior to the selection committee voting.
> Why not just order a few more F-15Ks?
Because the F-15K and the F-35 cannot stop China's Su-35 and J-20. Only the Silent Eagle with its An/APG-82 radar could.
> No headaches due to developmental delays and they undoubtedly get to save a few bucks... Which will be needed to cover the inevitable cost over runs of the JSF.
The solution they appear to be heading toward is the deployment of a counter stealth radar system to be ready by 2020, and use long range KL-SAMs to intercept Chinese and Japanese frontline jets until the KFX enters mass production to rebuild the air force tactical jet strength.
Reportedly there is a CAPE review this week of JSF costs. The unit cost would affect the sales price to ROK, the sale being FMS because ROK is not an F-35 partner. So the sales price must not be less than US cost.
ReplyDeletenews report:
"Kyra Hawn, spokeswoman for the Pentagon's F-35 program office, said a high-level Defense Acquisition Board meeting was expected to proceed on [last] Monday despite the partial government shutdown. The meeting has already been postponed several times.
"She said officials would receive an update on how the program was meeting cost and schedule targets, as well as progress on technical challenges including the millions of lines of software code being written for the planes."
Well it may and it may not include all or any of this, and so it may or it may not affect the ROK sale and others. We'll see. Past performance ( i.e. lack of transparency) is not encouraging.
Personally, I would like to see LM called on this continual stealth claim -- RCS equivalent to a marble, etc. Prove it, I say. But I doubt that it ever will be proved. It'll be classified, even if it is tested.
The Korean Defense Ministry officially denied the Chicago Tribune article. Don't expect a decision soon.
ReplyDeleteHow many "journalists" does LM have on its payroll, from Reuters and elsewhere, and does their cost exceed the JSF hourly flying cost of $30,000? The last South Korea news was supposed to unleash a deluge of foreign sales.
ReplyDeleteWASHINGTON, Sep 25 - Reuters (again)
Lockheed Martin Corp , nearing completion of its 100th F-35 fighter jet, anticipates dozens of international orders or commitments for the new radar-evading warplane in coming months, according to U.S. government officials and industry executives. The F-35 program got a boost on Tuesday when the South Korean government rejected a bid by Boeing Co to build 60 F-15 warplanes, saying it needed a more advanced “fifth-generation” fighter.//
Reminds me of what one journalist wrote about LM before a visit to Fort Worth:
"Gentlemen, your target for tonight is Fort Worth. Flacks are predicted to be numerous and persistent on the run-in and over the target, and bullshit is expected to be dense throughout the mission. Synchronize watches and good luck."
Solomon, have you heard anything about Navy officials accepting bribes to let an certain contractor engage in massive overbilling? This article is pretty recent:
ReplyDeletehttp://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-a-budget/329963-cut-pentagon-waste-not-social-security
The second to the last paragraph reads: "Whether it is the costs of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter plane more than doubling in the 2000s or the recent scandal in which naval officers allegedly took bribes for letting a contractor engage in massive overbilling, there is firm evidence that stricter monitoring of weapons procurement can save billions"
probably this--
DeleteLeonard Francis, the Malaysian CEO of Glenn Defense Marine, allegedly bribed Navy Commander Michael Misiewicz with paid travel, Lady Gaga concert tickets and prostitutes — the married father of four reportedly “liked Japanese women” — in return for information on classified naval movements and the steering of U.S. ships to ports where the company could easily overcharge the Navy. . . the contractor was caught regularly overcharging the U.S. Navy with the help of a naval commander and a Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) agent.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/23/contractor-bought-prostitutes-concert-tickets-for-top-naval-officers/
Good news department:
ReplyDeleteCuts to the defense budget under sequestration threaten to kill at least a half-dozen F-35 fighters in 2014 across the services, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.
The Air Force could lose four or five of the 19 F-35 fighters it requested in the 2014 budget due to sequestration, principal deputy Air Force secretary William LaPlante told a congressional panel Wednesday.
The Navy and Marines Corps would also be compelled to cut one F-35 from each of their variants under sequestration, service officials at the House Armed Services hearing said in written testimony.
http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/procurement/330269-at-least-six-f-35-fighters-threatened-by-sequester-in-2014
Don, just happened upon your stuff here. The good news may not be as good as you think if the combine of Lockheed/Boeing can market enough abroad using your tax money both to do the design and development and then to sell elsewhere.
Delete