Forum: Program and politics

SpudmanWP wrote:

How can you say

Quote:

These two F-35's are coming in $55m over Turkey's projected budget each.

and still say that you don't think that the LRIP jets should cost the same as FRP jets.

If Turkey "truly" only budgeted $65 for their first two LRIP jets, then they are "truly" fools for not knowing the difference between LRIP and FRP production.

Alright then, Einstein. What did Turkey plan to pay for the F-35 back in 2002?

I think that Turkey is hedging its bets. They only bought two F-35's at this time, knowing it would be oppressively expensive. As was stated in the OP, Turkey is buying two F-35's for the purpose of evaluating whether to procure more of them.

Knowing that other partner nations have had issues with cost overruns, Turkey has bought only two. If the aircraft proves to be everything they had hoped for, they might very well be willing to pay $120 million each. If the aircraft proves to be everything Lockheed Martin makes it out to be, and every bit as affordable as they claimed, Turkey will decide later on whether to buy a full order of 100 fighters or how ever many they can afford.

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I don't know, it's not up to me to provide that info.

Again, this goes to my anger over people talking about cost without ever providing context.

That article complains about the $120 URF for the first two and only quoting the average URF (for the entire F-35 production run) cost while leaving out the actual planned LRIP cost.

SpudmanWP wrote:

I don't know, it's not up to me to provide that info.

Actually it is. I'm not the one who stated the details in the article were wrong... you are. You made a claim and are unable to back it.

Remember the part of you claiming inflation was the reason a $40-$50m jet is now $120m? And the part about me correcting you and saying inflation only accounts for an additional $13m?

In the full context of the article, Turkey was planning to buy 100 F-35's at an average cost of ~$63 million (2012 dollars). This was decided back in 2002, but things have since changed and Turkey is not so certain they can afford 100 F-35's. Given the program's poor track record, Turkey has chosen to buy two F-35's now for the purpose of testing them and seeing whether they should buy more in the future... depending on how effective and how costly the F-35 proves to be.

This is not a good sign for the F-35, unless it does meet all its objectives. Buying two for $120 million each is for the sole purpose of evaluating the fighter and maybe training its ground crews, anticipating that the fighter's price tag may drop considerably in the next few years.

So it's my fault that they gave NO context to their claims?

SpudmanWP wrote:

So it's my fault that they gave NO context to their claims?

Of course not. It's your fault for making a claim that you could not validate.

SpudmanWP wrote:

The original estimates of $63 mil (fy2012) were for the AVERAGE Flyaway for the entire production cycle. The $120 quoted above is obviously includes more than just URF, so no, they are not talking about the same thing.

Had you merely stated that this was just your opinion, there would have been nothing to defend.

It's really quite simple:

Turkey bought two F-35's for $120 million each... that is not in dispute. This is significantly higher than Lockheed's average unit cost, and much higher than they had originally intended in 2002, when Turkey planned to buy a hundred F-35's.

Their buying two LRIP jets now isn't a very good sign for the F-35 program... it's an indication that Turkey is more skeptical of the F-35 now than it than they were back in 2002. That's all.

battleshipagincourt wrote:

Turkey bought two F-35's for $120 million each... that is not in dispute. This is significantly higher than Lockheed's average unit cost,

Obviously, they are LRIP.

Quote:

and much higher than they had originally intended in 2002, when Turkey planned to buy a hundred F-35's.

Now who is making assumptions. Can you show me an official doc or quote that backs that up? thought not.

Before you say "look at the article", here is the sentence from the article:

Quote:

Yilmaz also said the cost of an F-35 would be around $120 million for Turkey, much higher than a cost estimate of $40-50 million calculated in 2002.

That is suspiciously not a direct quote and leaves the second half (underlined) without a source.

Quote:

Their buying two LRIP jets now isn't a very good sign for the F-35 program... it's an indication that Turkey is more skeptical of the F-35 now than it than they were back in 2002. That's all.

Why? All the partner's buys are scheduled with a few jets (for training) in the beginning with the bulk to come later.

My question here is:

If a costumer buys 100 F-35s in total... will that costumer pay $6.5 billion or $12 billion?

* USD are fy2012 and approximate.

Do we have any idea how many Fy2013 F-35 will be produced or is this also in the crystal ball..?

r2d2 wrote:

My question here is:

If a costumer buys 100 F-35s in total... will that costumer pay $6.5 billion or $12 billion?

Actually it cannot possibly be as low as $65m in any event. Even if the F-35 program does work out as planned and the average unit cost turns out to be $65m, that's still not taking R&D into consideration, which is considerable.

How much exactly did they need to invest simply to design the F-35? I've heard figures as high as $60 billion. Divided among ~3000 F-35's. You're talking about anywhere from $15-$20m PER FIGHTER just for R&D. I don't know about you, but I highly doubt they're going to price these fighters on the flyaway cost alone. The initial investment just the develop the F-35 was astronomical.

Also the figures for LRIP pricing being about $120m is wrong... according the wikipedia, the cost of the F-35A in the 2012 year is roughly $197m a unit. If anything, Turkey got a BARGAIN on these two F-35's!

Once again... common sense... isn't Sad

1. All orders for F-35s have to be consolidated every year. This process is called a CPR (Consolidated Procurement Request).

2. The CPR is built from individual Partner Procurement Requests (PPR). This is when each Partner decides what he wants in any particular year.

3. The timeline for buying an F-35 is thus:
...Decision Year (DY0), turn in PPR
...DY+1, Consolidate PPRs into CPR and ordering of Long Lead items
...DY+2, Actual start of F-35 production
...DY+4, Delivery of F-35

So, since we know that Turkey has not made any formal order, they will not likely be part of FY2013 production as they would have had to turn in a PPR in 2011, and that would have been big news. But for the sake of argument that they snuck in a PPR and will be part of the FY2012 CPR and will have two FY2013 F-35s. Sorry BS, but that $197m F-35A (as wrong as it is - shame on you for trusting wiki) would have been a FY2012 F-35A, not a FY2013 F-35A.

But, in all likelihood the earliest that Turkey will have a F-35A on the production line is FY2014 and the URF will be even lower than FY2013's $118.

Newsflash, the SDD costs so far are done and paid for. The partner's already paid for them and cannot be charged again. In each year, the DoD and partner nations pay the SAME for each F-35 +/- any unique equipment.

So if Turkey is going to buy the things in 2012, when will they actually take delivery? In any case, here's hoping that Turkey has its radical Islamic revolution BEFORE it receives the F-35. I'd just as soon avoid another F-14 situation.

If they turned in a PPR in 2011, then they will be part of the 2012 Long lead items, 2013 production, and delivery in 2015.

If they did not do a PPR in 2011, then shift those dates to the right and delivery will be in 2016.

Spud, I understand your LRIP/FRP, PPR/CRP etc, I see that 2 aircraft makes %2 of 100 aircraft and $240 million for two of them makes just %4 of the total cost if each aircraft is to be $65 million therefore not important.

I also know that you follow the F-35 programme very well. Therefore I'm asking to you;

100 F-35 will cost close to which one $6.5 billion or $12 billion?

If by cost you mean URF in FY2012 dollars, then I would estimate in the $7-8 billion range.

This is due to Turkey (and all Partners) buying in the late LRIP and early FRP cycles. While their later purchases may start to see the $65 point, they are not likely to see the below $65 point needed to offset their earlier buys.

This again just proves my point that NOBODY quoted Turkey (or any other Partner) the AVERAGE price being "their" price for the F-35.

I dug up the Dec 31, 2011 SAR report and plugged in the numbers and likely Turkish buy years. Starting in the 2011 SAR they separated the airframe from the engine costs but I joined the numbers in the Turkish estimate.

To summarize, the cost estimates (including engine) in BY2012 dollars for Turkey are:
$7.751 billion REC Flyaway
$8.939 billion Total Flyaway (including non-recurring items)
$10.493 billion Total Program Cost

There is one caveat to keep in mind with Total Flyaway and, more importantly, Total Program: Many items that are included are US only like Full-Motion Flight simulators, training materials for Eglin, etc. Turkey will likely also have its own unique items to add to those cost categories also.

Here is the chart

Strike one for JSF 12 May 2012
Jon Lake looks at Lockheed Martin's Joint Strike Fighter and its role in the region's defence.

http://www.arabianaerospace.aero/strike ... r-jsf.html

"... it was good news when, on January 5, Turkey prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, chairing the defence industry executive committee (SSK), authorised the under secretariat for defence industries (SSM) to open negotiations with Lockheed Martin for the purchase of two F-35 Joint Strike Fighters for delivery by 2015.

This represented a halving of Turkey’s original planned order for F-35 test aircraft but defence minister Ismet Yilmaz confirmed that Turkey still plans to buy a total of 100 F-35s, at a total cost of about $16 billion.

Turkish JSF numbers have fluctuated between 100 and 120 since the country joined the programme in 2002. The confirmation of 100 represented a reduction in aircraft numbers compared to Turkey’s original plan to procure 116 aircraft, but the planned budget has expanded from $11 billion....

...Turkey’s ‘level three’ partner status entitles it to bid for work on the programme, provides some guarantee of technical transfer, and should ensure some priority in the order in which countries can obtain production aircraft.

Turkey hopes to assemble its F-35As under licence in country and also hopes to manufacture parts and sub-assemblies....

...Turkey’s validation of the F-35 is, thus, seen as being valuable and its rejection of the type would be a significant setback.

Against this background to both Lockheed Martin and the US Government, Turkey’s order for two aircraft represents a valuable ‘vote of confidence’ in the F-35....

...Turkey’s commitment to the JSF has sometimes looked shaky, especially in March 2011, when the government announced that it was putting the planned F-35 purchase on hold over concerns about technology transfer, and especially source codes.

Without the source code, Turkish engineers wouldn’t be able to make any changes to the aircraft’s software and would not have a full autonomous and independent ability to support, upgrade or modify the aircraft....

...The Turkish government decision to approve in principal the order for two F-35As has been taken in some quarters as formally ending the debate over software source codes. But such an interpretation of events is probably over-optimistic and the US position is likely to be challenged further before Turkey orders the rest of its F-35s. The US position is that any national need for operational independence can be met by interfacing with the software at the application level, rather than through interfacing with the lower level source code, any changes to which could compromise flight safety.

The purchase of F-35As by Israel and Japan without any guarantee of access to source codes may reassure the doubters, though this is uncertain. In Turkey’s case, though, the Israeli procurement may provide an additional impetus, as the Turks have always tended to keep abreast of Israeli capabilities and if the IDF/AF operates a low observable tactical fighter, capable of ‘first day of the war’, ‘kick down the door’ type missions, Turkey is sure to want to be able to do the same.

But many potential F-35 operators and customers suspect that without access to the source code, they cannot guarantee that there will not be some means by which the USA could effectively disable their aircraft, or prevent them from flying particular types of mission...."

LOTS more at the URL as this is a long article mentioning F-16s amongst other potential aircraft partners in the Turkish Air Force.

Forum: Program and politics

Turkey to buy two F-35s in 2012: minister