Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 Production Costs, Line Changes Drop: Lockheed By Richard Whittle : Nov 1, 2011

http://defense.aol.com/2011/11/01/f-35- ... g-steeply/

"...[the twelfth F-35 Joint Strike Fighter produced this year] took less than half as many touch-labor hours to assemble as did the first two Air Force versions, both of which came off the production line on May 17 last year.

Company officials, about to enter negotiations for the fifth tranche of low rate initial production (LRIP 5), say the dramatic reduction over the past 18 months in the amount of time it takes Lockheed mechanics to put together one of the complex stealth fighters is a sign the program is recovering from the crisis it faced in February 2010....

...Lockheed has also redesigned and next year will flight-test two doors that open behind the lift fan atop the fuselage to provide extra air for the engine when the B variant is hovering, Lawson said. The original auxiliary air intake doors -- still being flown on F-35Bs performing flight tests -- oscillate when open, creating no safety problem but making it likely they will wear out far earlier than they should.

The company has also gathered "a lot of data," Lawson said, that will enable engineers to come up with ways to mitigate a phenomenon called "suck down," in which turbulence under the F-35B as it lands vertically can create a vacuum that pulls the plane down too rapidly -- a potential danger, especially for a pilot returning from a mission with unexpended bombs or missiles....

...Don Kinard, deputy director of the F-35 Fighter Production System -- i.e., the factory floor -- said the latest F-35A took about 110,000 touch-labor hours to assemble rather than the roughly 250,000 hours the first A variants required....

...At the moment, Kinard said, it takes the factory two years to assemble an F-35. In the future, the learning curve should bring the amount of touch-labor hours down to about 50,000 and reduce the span of time the factory needs to produce a single aircraft to somewhere between 12 and 14 months.,,,"

Much Much Much Much More at the URL above.

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Some interesting admissions in the article.

Quote:

While 100 percent of mission systems, such as avionics and software, are the same in each variant of the F-35, the conventional takeoff A variant, the STOVL B variant and the C variant for use on aircraft carriers share only 20 percent common structure, Kinard said. The F-35C has a larger wing and heavier landing gear than the other two variants, for example, while the B variant is the only one with the lift fan and boasts a smaller weapons bay than the other two.

Interesting because years ago, the program was sold to a gullible congress with all variants being 80 percent common give or take.

As for the touch-labor hours; one could also state that these hours (110,000) are over twice as much as they should be (his hope of 50,000) in order to make jets at the fast rate of the original inspiration that again; sold the program to the gullible.

Interesting when you consider Carter's statements some time back that learning curve maturity (and not just all the other concurrent production issues including discovery of mistakes and implementing fixes) of the production line was part the reason for spending on a lower number of aircraft in LRIP.

Still a lot to get over for the program. At least they got some good marketing in with that article.

This must be a typo in the article... or a way of easing in the truth...

Quote:

That's when former Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the government's F-35 program manager and withheld $614 million in payments to Lockheed because of cost overruns and schedule delays in the project, whose goal is to build more than 2,000 fighters for the United States and 10 other countries.

The sales script has always been more than 3000. It will be a struggle to see 1000.

At some point in time one has to wonder when a phased production line makes more sense if the number of orders don't dramatically spike. Lots of overhead to run a continuous production line when you are only building 30 per year.

A bit disingenuous there don't you think. The 20% commonality is for structure, not the entire airplane. There are tons of parts that are common that are not part of the structure. Besides, the lifetime costs for parts is where the high commonality will come into play.

The high amount of touch-hours is due to them STILL BEING LRIP for Christ's sake. Get a grip.

It's not good marketing, it just good news.

SpudmanWP wrote:

A bit disingenuous there don't you think. The 20% commonality is for structure, not the entire airplane. There are tons of parts that are common that are not part of the structure. Besides, the lifetime costs for parts is where the high commonality will come into play.

The high amount of touch-hours is due to them STILL BEING LRIP for Christ's sake. Get a grip.

It's not good marketing, it just good news.

Define "structure".

Sounds like good spin to me. But then again, that is the established history of the program.

If commonality was really high, the PR flacks would not have missed the chance.

Interesting as it sounds even less common than this post-SWAT example-

http://goo.gl/MyFkJ

Good point about LRIP. They are in their 4th, going on to the 5th. Where the original plan stated 6 LRIPs... and we are going for how many now?

But flight testing is "on schedule" they say.

Which schedule?

http://goo.gl/zh7Tp

Aaaah, elp - always looking backwards.

Last edited by SpudmanWP on Nov 02, 2011 - 05:41 AM; edited 2 times in total

Really, I have to define structure for you?

These are structural in nature: Doors, hinges, spars, ribs, skin, etc.

The following ARE NOT structural: Avionics, wiring, ICP, radar, seat, cockpit displays, engine, sensors, EHAs, weapon racks, tires, wheels, nuts, bolts, etc.

Notice a trend? Structural parts will never or have a high likelihood of never being replaced during the lifetime of the fighter. The parts that will be replaced or serviced on a regular basis are not structural in nature. It's these parts where the high commonality rate will play a part in keeping cost down over the lifetime of the F-35.

There is another thing not addressed here and that is "cousin" parts. Cousin parts are parts that are made on the same production lines and are virtually identical in cost as if they were identical across the models. The above 20% does not take these "cousin" parts into account. That being said, one of the downsides to SWAT was the loss of structural parts commonality which did drive up the flyaway cost of the F-35.

btw, it was an LRIP2 [thanks sufaviper for the heads up] jet that only took 110,000 hours compared to an LRIP1 jet that took 200,000, not an LRIP4 jet. This represents a HUGE learning curve advancement when you consider it only took place with one LRIP cycle.

As a final note, the POST-SWAT graph you linked defines "common" as being used in at least two of the three variants. The 20% above probability refers to commonality across all three variants.

Last edited by sufaviper on Nov 03, 2011 - 02:54 AM; edited 1 time in total

Actually isn't the plane the article refers to AF-13, which is from LRIP 2, not LRIP 3, for the 110,000 hours? Also did I read it right that the government paid $111 million for that plane? Althought the wording confuses me, because it says,

"Along with an increase in the number of aircraft ordered in Low Rate Intitial Production Lot 4 as compared to LRIP Lot 1, the learning curve drop is one reason the plane that left Fort Worth on Wednesday cost $111 million, roughly half the price the government paid for each of the first two LRIP F-35As."

the plane that left Wednesday was AF-13, part of LRIP 2 if I am not mistaken, so that paragraph confuses me, but oh well. Even if it is LRIP 4 that is 111, is still shows huge improvements and a downward trend that is promising.

Anyway, Hi I will be going by Sufa Viper and I have been reading F-16.net for a while, just had trouble getting signed up with my att e-mail account so I tried again with my school account and it worked. Glad to finally be signed up.

Sufa Viper

Welcome sufaviper. Smile

Welcome aboard sufaviper.

Your are right, AF-13 [SN# 08-0751] is the last of the LRIP2 F-35As which makes the feat of going from 200k to 110k within one LRIP cycle even better. Thanks for the correction.

---edit---

One note of caution, the quote above may be talking about AF-14, the first CTOL from LRIP3:

The quote was:

Quote:

the latest F-35A took about 110,000 touch-labor hours to assemble rather than the roughly 250,000 hours the first A variants required.

Since AF-13 was delivered 3 months (26 Oct) after its first flight (14 Jul) and that AF-14 is supposed to be delivered "around the 1st of the year", it seems more likely that the 110k jet was in fact AF-14, a LRIP3 jet. My reasoning is that in order to be delivered early in 2012, AF-14 would have had to already left the factory floor and be going through pre-flight checkout as we speak.

Quote:

The first two LRIP 3 jets, CTOL aircraft AF-14 and short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing aircraft BF-13, are scheduled to be delivered to Eglin "around the first of the year," Branyan says.

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/ ... el=defense

A correction to my correction... and some GREAT news.

Quote:

Along with an increase in the number of aircraft ordered in Low Rate Intitial Production Lot 4 as compared to LRIP Lot 1, the learning curve drop is one reason the plane that left Fort Worth on Wednesday cost $111 million, roughly half the price the government paid for each of the first two LRIP F-35As.

My head went HUH??? when I saw that price associated with the jet that just left (the 110k hour labor jet). That means that no way in hell it's LRIP3 and sounds like LRIP4. Reading the comments from the article and a response from the author, confirms this.

Quote:

Richard - You mentioned that the air force F-35 that left on Wednesday cost $111M. Does that price include an engine? The reason why I ask is that in March, Aviation Intl. News reported: "The 31 aircraft recently contracted in low-rate initial production (LRIP) Lot 4 at fixed prices will each cost $111.6 million (F-35A), $109.4 million (F-35B) and $142.9 million (F-35C), they reported. These figures exclude the cost of the F135 engines, which are procured separately from Pratt & Whitney. The latest production prices for these are $15 million each for the F-35A/C versions, and $32 million each for the F-35B STOVL versions." (Ref. http://www.ainonline.com/?q=aviation-ne ... icials-say ).

Now for the response from the author:

Quote:

You ask an excellent question, Blair, and answer it correctly, too. The $111 million doesn't include the engine,

To those of you who have not drank your coffee yet, this means that LM went from contract award of LRIP4 to first jet out the door (no, not delivered yet) in under 12 months Smile

While this dampens my hoopla about how quickly they went from 200k to 110k in labor hours, I am impressed that they did it in under a year.

For the sake of arguement if L-M's fully burdened Direct Labor rate for their mechanics is $100/MHR then the assembly cost at 110,000 hours is 11 million. A small percentage of the total cost of the aircraft. As they proceed down the learning curve and get to the 50,000 MHR total or 25 individuals working one year to assemble the aircraft the assembly cost will fall to 5 million. Don't think either number is out-of-line for such a complex vehicle. The question is whether or not the full burden rate is $100? That's an approximate number in the rest of the manufacturering and assembly world. Even if it were double that the percentage isn't 25% of the price.

As for parts commonality as long as there is one surface or better two that are common on cousin parts you can use the same tooling and save money. The auto industry has done that for the better part of a century. Just look at the 2 door coupes, 4 door sedans and at times station wagons coming off the same assembly line.

If anything the LRIP quantities should be structured to match the learning curve with increasing numbers each year until the full line rate is achieved.

Mark

Last edited by maus92 on Nov 02, 2011 - 11:16 PM; edited 1 time in total

From the same article:

"The company has also gathered "a lot of data," Lawson said, that will enable engineers to come up with ways to mitigate a phenomenon called "suck down," in which turbulence under the F-35B as it lands vertically can create a vacuum that pulls the plane down too rapidly -- a potential danger, especially for a pilot returning from a mission with unexpended bombs or missiles."

"Suck-down": haven't heard an issue described with this term before. Is it the same turbulence issue as before, or a new one?

sufaviper wrote:

the plane that left Wednesday was AF-13, part of LRIP 2 is I am not mistaken, so that paragraph confuses me, but oh well. Even if it is LRIP 4 that is 111, is still shows huge improvements and a downward trend that is promising.

Sufa Viper

Don't forget to add ~15M for the F135 (for an -A, -B ~32M) The $111M is for the air vehicle, which doesn't include the engine, and other GFE - which is unclear about how much these systems add to the total cost of each aircraft.

maus92 wrote:

sufaviper wrote:

the plane that left Wednesday was AF-13, part of LRIP 2 is I am not mistaken, so that paragraph confuses me, but oh well. Even if it is LRIP 4 that is 111, is still shows huge improvements and a downward trend that is promising.

Sufa Viper

Don't forget to add ~15M for the F135 (for an -A, -B ~32M) The $111M is for the air vehicle, which doesn't include the engine, and other GFE - which is unclear about how much these systems add to the total cost of each aircraft.

Yes, there are additional costs not included in the $111M, but that is an attempt to distraction from the point I was making. The price is dropping in large chunks. We have 4 data points (+ SDD) that show a downward trend in pricing. There is no denying the LRIP 4 < LRIP 3 < LRIP 2 < LRIP 1 < SDD in terms of cost per aircraft and man hours per aircraft.

Sufa Viper

My understanding is that a significant number of parts comprising the structure while not common are actually described as "cousin" parts which still afford significant savings. The example I recall is the wing of the C variant being larger and more expensive but it is built using the same "common" equipment and people who build the wings for the A and B..

Forum: F-35 Lightning II

F-35 Production Costs, Line Changes Drop: LM