Further to the Update at this post,

Canada and the F-35: Two views/Reality Update

Bill Sweetman writes about some implications of the latest news at Defense Technology’s “Ares” blog:

Defense Secretary Bob Gates will be told in a meeting today that development of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter will be further delayed, on top of the 13-month slippage that was disclosed in March.

According to Pentagon critic Winslow Wheeler, corroborated by Bloomberg and the New York Times, the USAF/international F-35A and Navy F-35C will be delayed another 12 months and the Marine’s F-35B – still suspended from powered-lift flight and reeling from last months’ bail-out by the UK – will be two to three years late. It’s not clear whether that refers to the completion of development testing or to the initial operational capability (IOC) date.

The operations and support costs for the F-35 will be re-budgeted as 1.5 times [emphasis added] the aircraft it replaces, more than twice what was originally hoped for and 50 percent more than the most recent projections…

The delays are almost certain to affect the ramp-up of production. As with the delay announced earlier this year, the added R&D costs are likely to be paid for by cutting US low-rate initial production (LRIP) orders, increasing the prices of those aircraft. Combined with delays in IOC dates, this will accelerate the pace at which international partners are moving their deliveries to the right…

Customers will also have to figure out how many aircraft they can afford to operate, with basically flat budgets suggesting that total force requirements will have to be reduced by one-third. This will put at risk the 200-plus annual production rates on which the program’s projections of low average procurement unit costs have been based. For the USAF, this could mean other extra costs to extend the life of older fighters…

Meanwhile our government says that Canadian companies will be able to bid for contracts on a total production run of up to 5,000 planes, that we will pay a direct acquisition price of just $70-75 million for each for our 65 fighters, and that long-term maintenance/support costs will be some $7 billion.  It don’t figure, folks.

Predate: More from Mr Sweetman:

Uh-O Canada
…
[Assistant national defence deputy minister Dan] Ross’ statement includes some other remarkable claims.

There are only two ways to buy a Joint Strike Fighter:  by exercising your options as a partner under the Memorandum of Understanding or through the United States Foreign Military Sales program, on a Government-to-Government basis.  The US Government does not participate in RFP competitions. (Emphasis added.)

The last statement would be news in India, Singapore and Korea, to name but three [all three are holding fighter competitions with US aircraft involved, one example]. But Ross isn’t done:

In terms of the JSF MoU it should be made clear that, in order to run a competition, Canada would be forced to withdraw from the MoU.

The full text of the MoU in question is here, and if anyone can find anything in it that support’s Ross’ statement, they can take a cookie from my desk [more on the MoU here].

Mark
Ottawa