Monday, February 20, 2012

F-35 external weapons stores...

On Feb. 16, 2012, the first external weapons test mission was flown by an F-35A Conventional Takeoff and Landing (CTOL) aircraft at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif


10 comments :

  1. Look ma, no toe-out (ala F-18) in the pylons :)

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  2. wow. that was my first thought too!

    nobody will give it credit but the testing appears to be picking up pace over even an impressive 2011. the USAF is dragging feet on IOC and the Program Manager is too but i bet we still see a 2013 IOC for the USMC version.

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  3. The problem with the F-35B going IOC in 2013 is that work will not be complete on Blk2B until 2014 (with cert in late 2014).

    See the latest budget docs or my graphic here for the timeline:
    http://i619.photobucket.com/albums/tt271/SpudmanWP/ebab2ba3.jpg

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  4. We'll get the services projected IOC dates within the next few months as the budget discussions hit Congress. Whether it's 2015 or 2016 for the USMC is in my view far less of an issue than the current projected unit flyaway for the 290 F-35B's now at $144 million.

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  5. Good news Lane! You can sleep easy tonight. The average unit flyaway cost for the A model was projected to be about $60M as of about June of last year. Of course, that was based upon the build plan at the time. Since the 'Concurrency' canard frightened the children in DoD and rubes in Congress, that plan has now been stretched out.(psst. It's not really a concurrency problem, they were mostly just looking for a way to cut the budget in the near term... but that is another story) This unfortunately means the unit flyaway costs will almost certainly increase soon. Make sure to tell your Congressman you don't appreciate him/her driving up F-35 costs and ask him/her what they're going to do about it.
    BTW. I've seen that $144M figure for a lot of things, just not a unit cost for the B model.(I swear, the biggest threat to the F-35 is how people sling around Flyaway, APUC and PAUC cost numbers without understanding them.)

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  6. People tend to use numbers so support their position. So we get things like total program cost or gross systems cost from people against the program and say REC flyaway for those in favor. The $144 million cost for the B is the unit flyaway cost on page 1 of the P-40 in the current USN FY2013 budget. The USAF doc shows the A at $112 million average unit flyaway for 1,763.

    While people do throw numbers around normally in discussions between Congress and DOD unit flyaway is used and along with gross systems cost are the only unit line items showing individual costs in the budget docs.

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  8. (most egregious cut/paste errors corrected)
    I see now why I hadn't seen that number $144m/per for the B before; until this year it wasn't part of the P-40 (I note the caveat on the lines below the TOA line that the numbers are 'informational'. I'm OK with this even though it’s the BS CAIG accounting rules mandated by law that provide such an inflated EAC.
    Some not 'all' people use the cost numbers they 'like'. What matters is why they 'like' them. Is it rational to like them? All I want is for the use of cost numbers to be consistent. To be consistent with legacy systems, the URF has been of the most interest and has the most meaning to Joe Six-pack.
    My only problem with using the Unit Flyaway Cost now is that it has no proper context (yet) to give it proper meaning. Most people seeing the $144M would think that means what one F-35B would cost, instead of one aircraft's share of just about everything on the program including the kitchen sink. As I'm sure WE both know, per the DoD's cost analysis guidance manual, a 'Flyaway Cost':
    ....is used as a generic term to refer to the cost of producing a usable end item of equipment (hardware and software). Flyaway cost includes:
    C3.3.2.1. Work Breakdown Structure (WBS). WBS elements of Prime Mission Equipment (such as basic structure, propulsion, electronics (hardware and software), system software, etc.), System Engineering/Program Management, and System Test and Evaluation.
    C3.3.2.2. Budget. Funded from RDT&E and Procurement appropriations. This would include funding for warranties, engineering changes, preplanned product improvement (during system acquisition), and first destination transportation (unless FDT is a separate budget line item). Certain acquisition costs funded in the O&M appropriation (e.g., ship installations) are also included.
    C3.3.2.3. Life-Cycle Cost. The flyaway costs (including Government-Furnished Equipment), both contractor and in-house, of the Research and Development and Investment Nonrecurring and Recurring cost categories. (DoD 5000.4-M)
    But I'm still good with the 'kitchen sink’ Unit Flyaway Cost number as long as it comes with some proper perspective. Perspective such as the F-18E/F "Unit Fly Away Cost" being 2.5+ times higher @ $382,196,184/plane (in the same budget document you found the F-35 numbers). Both the numbers include a pile of sunk cost, but what the heck, eh? You can still sleep tight. I notice not too much movement in the detailed numbers for the B model beyond the CAIG perversions and decision to slip buy quantities. The good news is as long as the F-35 keeps coming along at or below whatever the planned should cost curve is, the CAIG numbers look less and less credible.
    (Sorry for sucking up bandwidth Solomon)

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  9. You're reading the chart incorrectly. Page 1 of the F/A-18E/F P-40 (page 115 FY13 USN budget) shows the unit flyaway for FY13 to be $65 million for 26 and the $382,196,184 number you cite actually is in $thousands and is the total cost for all 565 E/F's which if you divide by 565 comes out to about $68 million average unit flyaway per plane over the total buy.

    The F-35C costs more than twice as much which is not unrealistic as it's at least twice as effective. The issue is really how much capability we can afford. The problem for the USAF is that they are attempting to replace the entire low end of their tactical aviation fleet with what was billed as an affordable aircraft which in fact is turning out to be rather expensive and in fact is heavier than a F-15C much less the large number of F-16's it will replace.

    The USAF is never going to get near 1,763 F-35A's for a whole host of reasons and this is little elephant in the room is the remaining cost issue nobody wants to deal with.

    The three main reasons 1,763 is not going to happen are force structure reductions (already happening), the aircraft's cost coupled with the budget crisis, and the fact that some number of USAF fighter wings will be operating a fighter sized UCAS not manned aircraft. This isn't speculation. UCAS-D (X-47B follow on) is likely to get into service aboard ship around or even before the F-35C and the USAF is not going to let the USN be the sole operator for this class of aircraft. UCAS-D is nothing like MQ-1/9 in that it's a stealthy fighter sized aircraft powered by an F100 and in various missions will offer utility than the F-35.

    A lot of discussion around UCAS today is about getting the next generation into service that is not restricted to permissive environments. The USAF will be operating at least one or two wings of these aircraft instead of manned fighters. Even if every one of the ten strike wings in the last QDR gets the F-35A, not a UCAS and all F-15E's are replaced, that's about 1,080. Even 12 wings requires around 1,300. The 1,763 number has been around for so long the USAF stopped looking at it but it's a mendacious number. Ten wings or around 1,100 F-35A's is far more realistic.

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  10. I'm not misreading anything. You've just mixed apples and oranges.
    You orignally asserted the "current projected unit flyaway for the 290 F-35B's now at $144 million" and referred me to the budget materials, specifically the P-40 exhibit. I went to http://www.finance.hq.navy.mil/fmb/13pres/APN_BA1-4_BOOK.pdf to look at the source data and find the total unit flyaway cost listed as 143,763.595 (thousands$)for those 290 B models on page 143 of 286 in the pdf file. In the same source document, I go to the same column and row for the F-18E/F on page 115 of 286 in the source document and find a total flyaway unit cost of 382,196.184 (thousands$) for 565 aircraft. Apples and Apples. BTW, the reason most of the other numbers on the F-18E/F sheet seem more reasonable is that they are msotly in the past and can't get that special CAIG inflation factor.

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