The GE/Rolls-Royce engine boondoggle is a good example that is running up costs and will keep running up costs in the future with duplicate parts chains. The reason for the second power plant, insofar as I can determine, appears to be wholly a political kickback/spread-the-wealth scheme to keep GE and Rolls in the future fighter engine game along with P&W.
Here’s a little report that shows that as time goes on, the costs are going up, the commonality is going down, and the schedules are blowing past deadlines. All easily predictable - when you have a multi-mission project, (eg, USAF, USN), the costs go up, just as they did on the F-111. When you have not only multi-mission, but multiple customers (our NATO “allies”), then the costs, delays and program changes blow through the roof.
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08388.pdf
As we can see, the cost projections keep going up, up, up on the JSF. It is now so high in per-unit price that our “allies” are starting to seriously grumble about the price. The last thing we need is the US taxpayer being tapped for some kickback “aid” so that our allies can afford this aircraft so that they ultimately meet their contract acquisition numbers.
Straight out of school, I worked for a defense contractor on a NATO project that was managed by both the US and our NATO allies, and the NATO reps were Norwegians. Nice folks, but they didn’t do schedules the way Americans did. The DOD acquisition and contract office and the Norwegian counterparts never did seem to see eye to eye. Did they change technical requirements? Not exactly. They changed scheduled compliance with requirements...
Did they intend to slow things down? Not exactly.
Did they actually slow things down with their disagreements and cross-purposes? Oh yes.
The F-111 was indeed meant to be a multi-role AC from the beginning. The Navy and USAF were both shoehorning their requirements into the F-111 as far back as 1962. And that’s before we get into the requirements of our “allies” for the platform.
Are the cost-increases in the JSF due to the allies?? I believe funding for the alternative engine was cut a few years ago.
The vast majority of design changes for the F-111 was for the USN variant, which performed poorly. Unlike the f-35.