Excerpts from an article in Armed Forces Journal by a US Navy officer (note that the USN is still buying Super Hornets; the USMC is buying the more complex and expensive Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) F-35B, our government intends to buy the simpler and cheaper conventional take-off and landing F-35A):

…the Corps intends to transition all four of its tactical fixed-wing platforms into one new airframe: the STOVL variant of the Joint Strike Fighter, also known as the F-35B Lightning II. The F-35B is four years behind schedule, and the per-unit acquisition cost has exceeded $120 million — almost triple the amount envisioned by the Joint Initial Requirements Document for the Joint Strike Fighter.

In proclaiming the F-35B a critical capability for the future of Marine Corps aviation and pursuing no viable alternatives to its full-scale procurement, the service’s leadership has accepted an untenable amount of risk. The Marine Corps must, at least privately, explore options to the wholesale procurement of the F-35B…

TOO BIG TO FAIL

At $300 billion, the F-35 program is the most expensive acquisition project ever undertaken by the Defense Department. With three variants of the F-35 in concurrent production, it will be difficult to assign a per-unit cost for each aircraft. Lockheed Martin is producing the most complex variant, the F-35B, first. As the first airframe in full-scale production, the F-35B will experience the greatest fluctuation in price if quantities later in the production run are changed. The Air Force, for example, initially planned to buy enough F-35As to replace all of its A-10s, F-16s and F-15Es. With a recently announced decision to extend the life of those legacy strike platforms, the Air Force clearly signaled that it would be reducing the number of F-35s required to modernize its strike-fighter fleet [emphasis added, main role of F-35]. The Air Force buy of 1,763 F-35As represents more than two-thirds of the planned domestic production run. Recent estimates of Air Force requirements for the F-35A indicate the service likely will require between 800 and 1,200 aircraft [emphasis added, note the reduced numbers of aircraft for which Canadian subcontractors might seek contracts; the opportunity to bid on very large numbers being the government's main rationale for its decision in favour of the F-35--see also, "US F-35 update..."]. At best, this would drive the per-unit cost over $200 million…

The cancellation of the entire F-35 program is unlikely, but the customers of the STOVL variant [not us, remember] remain those with the most to lose. The program is certainly essential to national security, and new cost controls are in place — lead-turn actions for a Nunn-McCurdy breach. What the Defense Department has not demonstrated is the third requirement for such a breach: that there is no lesser-cost alternative.

The Air Force and the Navy have viable alternatives in place to await the maturation of the F-35. The Block 60 F-16E/F and the Block II F/A-18E/F are still in production [emphasis added], and their designs incorporate modern technology that makes them 4.5-generation strike fighters capable of bridging the gap between legacy aircraft and the fifth-generation F-22 and F-35. Making them even more attractive, the aircraft currently in production represent mature technology available at affordable and fixed costs. Extending multiyear procurements of the 4.5-generation aircraft will in fact drive down their per-unit cost and get newer technology out to the fleet faster than waiting for the perpetually delayed F-35 program.

…The Marine Corps can buy three F/A-18Fs for the cost of a single F-35B…

The F/A-18F [the dual seat version] would revolutionize the way Marines provide close-air support. Using an active electronically scanned array radar, an advanced targeting pod, the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System (JHMCS) and an expanded communications suite, the dual-seat F/A-18F has the potential to be the most capable airborne forward air controller, or FAC(A), platform in the world [might be a useful role in support of our Army]. No matter how “sensor-fused,” single-seat aircraft are not optimum FAC(A) platforms.

Since the retirement of the A-4 and A-6, the Marine Corps has not possessed a tactical tanker. Marine Air Group (MAG) assets rely on the slower KC-130 for aerial refueling. An F/A-18F equipped with an aerial refueling store is capable of delivering more than 20,000 pounds of fuel to other jet aircraft at tactical airspeeds and altitudes. Having an organic tactical tanker would be a force multiplier for the MAG commander and would provide an internal capability to increase the range of the F-35B in a high-threat scenario [such a capability might be useful for our Air Force both to support its own planes and coalition aircraft].

…procuring the F/A-18F at the end of its production run allows the Marine Corps to get the most refined version of the aircraft with the least amount of risk at one-third the price of the F-35B. This is how the Corps has historically procured aircraft, and with good reason. As a smaller service with a smaller budget, it is necessary to leverage cost advantages when so blatantly presented with the option [and our Air Force is a much smaller service even than USMC Aviation].

…Inexorably tying the future of Marine Corps aviation to a publicly flailing program, however, is not prudent.

The highly politicized nature of an acquisition program as big as the F-35 is inescapable. There are international political and fiscal consequences that demand the seemingly mandatory success of an ambitious and complicated program. In a fiscal environment where the phrase “too big to fail” has become a metaphor for a program requiring significant input from the American taxpayer to prevent it from collapsing under its own weight, the F-35 program indeed seems too big to fail…

Lt. Cmdr. Perry Solomon is a department head in Strike Fighter Squadron 213 aboard Naval Air Station Oceana, Va. His operational assignments include deployments as an F/A-18 pilot in support of operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and Unified Assistance.

I have no idea how accurate the cost comparisons are but I’m pretty sure the Super Hornet is considerably cheaper than the F-35A will turn out to be (we still don’t know the unit cost for Canada as no actual contract will be signed for some time yet).

Quite a bit to think about, not that our government does much of that on the military/strategic side of defence issues–at least that is obvious.  Keep in mind that 4.5 generation fighters also include the Eurofighter Typhoon, Dassault Rafale, and Saab Gripen NG.  All “next generation” compared to the CF-18, if not “fifth generation”; the government maintains Canada must buy the F-35 since it is the only next generation fighter available to us.  I guess it all depends on what the meaning of generation is–note how “next generation” elides into “fifth generation” at this government webpage justifying the F-35 decision without any mention of 4.5 generation aircraft.

It really should be a matter of what our government actually expects our new fighters to do, not potential bucks and jobs for Canadian industry (more here and here).  And I still do not think initial attack against heavy and effective air defences–the primary purpose of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter–is a likely or necessary mission for the very small number of fighters that Canada could commit to any coalition operation overseas; we certainly are not going to act alone.

Update: Media round-up from the Conference of Defence Associations:

F35 procurement, Afghan elections and the surge

Mark
Ottawa