Posted on 03/12/2008 9:51:33 AM PDT by BGHater
The cost of buying and operating a new fleet of jet fighters for the U.S. military is nearing $1 trillion, according to a congressional audit that found the program dogged by delays, manufacturing inefficiencies and price increases.
Released Tuesday, the report from the Government Accountability Office offers a sobering assessment of the ambitious effort to deliver a modern series of aircraft known as the F-35 Lightning II to the Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps.
Tasked by Congress to conduct an annual assessment of the program, the GAO said costs have gone up by $23 billion since last year alone.
Close to $300 billion is needed to acquire 2,458 aircraft for the three services and another $650 billion will be needed to operate and maintain the fighters that are expected to be flying well into the 21st century, the report says.
Operating costs, projected at $346 billion just a few years ago, have been driven upward by changes in repair plans, revised costs for depot maintenance, higher fuel costs and increased fuel consumption.
The GAO's auditors said they expect development and procurement costs "to increase substantially and schedule pressures to worsen based on performance to date."
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. of Fort Worth, Texas, is the prime contractor for the Lightning II, also known as the Joint Strike Fighter.
The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, also sees many of the problems as self-inflicted.
"The contractor has extended manufacturing schedules several times, but test aircraft delivery dates continue to slip," the report states. "The flight test program has barely begun, but faces substantial risks with reduced assets as design and manufacturing problems continue to cause delays that further compress the time available to complete development."
Auditors criticized both the military and the contractor for pressing into the jet's development's phase before key technologies were mature, started manufacturing test aircraft before designs were stable, and moved to production before flight tests showed the aircraft was ready.
"We do not know the basis for the GAO estimates and until we receive and analyze their data we will be unable to comment on them," Lockheed spokesman John Smith said in an e-mailed statement.
Smith, however, said the company has been careful stewards of U.S. tax dollars by trimming costs wherever possible.
"We continue to apply the same kind of oversight, budget alignment and lean thinking to the program," he said.
Production of the Lightning II has begun and the Defense Department is scheduled to buy the aircraft through 2034. U.S. allies are also buying hundreds of the jets and are contributing $4.8 billion in development costs.
The Lightning II is being produced in several different models tailored to the needs of each service. The new jet will replace the Air Forces F-16 Falcon and the A-10 Warthog aircraft. A short takeoff and vertical landing version will replace the Marine Corps F/A-18C/D and AV-8B Harrier aircraft. And the Navy is buying a model designed for taking off and landing on aircraft carriers. On the Net:
* GAO report on Lightning II: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08388.pdf * F-35 Lightning II program: http://www.jsf.mil/
Nice one. :-)
$1 trillion is nothing. To rebuild and modernize the infrastructure is $100 trillion.
Other than opposing forces next-generation aircraft shooting them out of the sky... the super hornet...
The hornet's a neat plane. But should we have 30 year old designs still fighting the newer, better opponents in 10 years? 20 years?
I agree this is a poor way of representing expenditures, you have to compare this with current operating costs incurred by our maintaining older technology for the next 30-40 years.
Not to mention the cost in lives to service men if on some later date we are outmatched in warfare technology, that is completely inestimable.
Yeah, but -- has there *ever* been a Govt cost estimate that didn't end up far larger than what was first said?
If the Govt says $1 trillion, count on it being far more when all is said & done.
Of course. It’s still a good deal.
What’s been the total spent on the F-14, 15, 16 and 18 over the entire service lives of all of the aircraft, including flight costs and maintenance? I don’t know... but I bet it’s a similar number.
What's really needed is to design a next generation A-10. the air force is getting 200 pairs of new wings built for the current fleet of A-10's to keep them flying another 20-25 years. The F-35 is too expensive and too fast for the close ground attack role.
It's a general rule; For each $1 of original purchase price you will end up paying $1-2 for maintanence and operatiing costs over the aircraft life.
I really, really agree with that. Take what we know about the real-life combat experience with the old A-10... develop an improved version. Seems so obvious.
For that matter, now's the time to start R&D on the replacement for the F-22 as well. By the time we need a replacement, it's going to have to be something pretty special. We ~have to~ keep pushing the technology, or we'll get beaten to it.
Better check your gouge, tiger. You're wrong on several performance parameters of the Lightning II and the "Super Hornet", which can't even match the performance of the Hornet in several areas.
By the way, a clean "Super Hornet" can't break Mach 1 below 10,000 feet.
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