Forum: F-35 Lightning II

I'm new to the forums so forgive me if this has been addressed already. Has it occurred to anyone that one reason F-35's and F-22's cost so much is that we now have only 3 companies in the US to purchase aircraft from: Lockheed-Martin, Boeing and Northrup-Grumman. When the F-16 and F-15 were originally conceived we had at least a dozen aircraft companies producing fighters including: McDonnel-Douglas, Grumman and Northrop were separate, Farichild, General Dynamics, the list goes on. My point here is one of the major contributors to these huge costs isn't just inflation, it's the fact there is so little competition now. What does everyone else think?

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The F-22 really pushed the technology and peformance enevlope and that costs lots of $$$. The F-35 program benefits from the lessons learned with the Raptor but it remains so ambitious and complex so even more $$$. There may have been more companies back then but just a handful had the resources and expertise necessary to build a 5thGen fighter.

Fighters of any Generation have a higher fly-away cost than the previous generation.

Many factors influence this. technology, complexity, inflation, size, numbers.

....P-51: US$51,000
....F-86: US$220,000
....F-100D: US$700,000
....F-4E: US$2.4 million
....F-15A: US$15 million (1972)
....F-15E: US$31.1 million (1998)
....F-15K: US$100 million (2006) (AESA Radar/New Electronics)
....F-15SE: US$100+? million (Stealth treatments/AESA/ETC)
....F-22A: US$137.5 million (2008)

Even the F-16 was more than twice as much than it was "expected" to be in development due to the US inflation rates in the late 70's.

....FX: $3 Million (anticipated in 1965)
....F-16A: US$10.2 million (1975)
....F-16A/B: US$14.6 million (1998 dollars)
....F-16C/D: US$18.8 million (1998 dollars)
....F-16E/F: US$26.9 million (2005)
....F-16C/D 50/52+: US$35-$50 million (estimated based on equipment)
....F-16I: US$70 million (2006 estimated)

I mean even today the cost of a new F100-PW-229 engine is $5 million... The cost of the F135 engine is going to be $10M or more. (The F119 is down to around $9M)

Keep 'em flyin' Thumb

TEG

Early contracts tend to be competed, so that tends to keep the proposals low to be competitive, even if there are only 3 bidders. Once a winner is selected, subsequent contracts are done on cost-plus basis (i.e. actual cost of the labor and materials plus a profit percentage); all of the costs are subject to government audit. Theoretically, this means that a company can't inflate their contracts because they have no competition.

In reality, the reduced number of contracts (not contractors) is partly to blame in spiraling costs...the support industrial base has shrunk. Example...DOD used to be the single largest purchaser of integrated circuits, incentivizing industry to develop and produce mass quantities of military-grade computer chips. Not true any more. This means that DOD has to take what's commercially available and spend serious bucks modifying them to meet their needs. And about the time they are about to enter production, that chip isn't available anymore and they have to do it all over again.

The MMC computer on the Viper is a good example. Years were spent developing it, and just when they were about to be produced in quantity, it had to be redesigned. Thus, the first 6 MMC jets had to go to the OT test wing at Eglin because the productions TOs did not apply to them.

Roscoe wrote:

In reality, the reduced number of contracts (not contractors) is partly to blame in spiraling costs...the support industrial base has shrunk. Example...DOD used to be the single largest purchaser of integrated circuits, incentivizing industry to develop and produce mass quantities of military-grade computer chips. Not true any more. This means that DOD has to take what's commercially available and spend serious bucks modifying them to meet their needs. And about the time they are about to enter production, that chip isn't available anymore and they have to do it all over again.

Prices for DOD specific parts was often priced a factor of 10 over civilian parts because they went through much more thorrow testing etc. A typical integrated circuit made for civilian use would only be tested up to 20% of its functionality, while the same part sold to the military would be tested 100%, which lead to a lot of scrap and added labour cost.

Every 7th F-16 Norway bought had a special VCR instead of the HUD camera recorder. This VCR recorded aircarft performance and statistics way above normal, and this was sent to GD for analasis. I had to order one once and I seem to remember that it was $20,000 back in 1984-85. Now that is an expencive VCR.

Though I’ve never worked in aviation industry, I believe the principal reasons for unit cost inflation have more to do with economic principles that apply generally to all industry than for strictly competitive reasons.

First, the historical pattern of high-tech development suggests that fewer and fewer firms possess the technological resources required to compete effectively as technology advances over time. This is especially evident when an increasing number of high technologies are integrated into a single product. The current generation of fighter planes provides a salient example. While first-generation jet fighters required mastery of only a single technology (jet propulsion), the latest generations also require mastery of radar, infrared, communications, imaging, missile, and aerodynamic technologies, to name just a few. As the costs of ever-increasing integration rise exponentially over time, naturally, the pool of firms able to bear such costs must shrink accordingly.

Of course, the ever-increasing capability of warplanes in general over time has led to shrinkage in the types of mission-specialized aircraft required. Firms that previously specialized in production of mission-specific aircraft faced extinction as multi-mission aircraft arrived. Advances in precision-guided munitions have further reduced the number and variety of planes required. And finally, the transition from the Cold-War era to the post-Cold-War era dramatically reduced the sheer volume of aircraft required.

The combined effect of all of the above has dramatically reduced the need for a larger number of firms to compete for a piece of an ever-shrinking pie. It is possible that the loss of volume has led to diseconomies of scale, despite the smaller number of firms remaining today. Diseconomies of scale, if they are present, would almost certainly raise unit costs of aircraft production.

The french Rafale, mirage and swedish gripens are also expensive for what they are, though the gripen is much more firendly in maintenance costs. Why? Both french and swedish aircraft manufacturers are the only ones in their own countries. While the swedish has engines and electronics from several countries the mirage and Rafale doesnt. Infact for every french aircraft I came across at work you pay a premium for french components even if man hours of maintenace is relatively low.

I do wonder if McDonnell Douglas's JSF proposal should have been selected for further development, perhaps that would have kept them from merging with Boeing?

I believed Rockwell offered a proposal for the ATF program at one point, are they doing anything besides for maintaining the B-1B these days?

Elite 1K Joined: May 26, 2005 - 08:39 PM Posts: 1496

lampshade111 wrote:

I believed Rockwell offered a proposal for the ATF program at one point, are they doing anything besides for maintaining the B-1B these days?

Rockwell International's defense business was purchased by Boeing in the mid-90s. The company eventually split into Rockwell Automation (which does industrial electronics) and Rockwell Collins (which does avionics).

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 and F-22 Costs