GAO: Lockheed F-35 Overruns Top $1 Billion

[maus92]

Lockheed F-35 Overruns Top $1 Billion, Government Auditor Finds
Tony Capaccio | Bloomberg

"Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT)’s first 63 F-35 fighter jets are exceeding their combined target cost by $1 billion, showing the Pentagon’s costliest program lacks a reliable design and efficient manufacturing, according to U.S. congressional auditors.

The Pentagon is absorbing $672 million and Lockheed Martin the remaining $328 million in added costs for the aircraft in the first four production contracts..."

""“Engineering changes have been persisting at relatively high rates and additional changes will be needed as testing continues,” the GAO said today. “Manufacturing processes and performance indicators show some progress, but performance on the first low-initial production contracts has not been good.”"

"The $1 billion in cost increases for the first 63 aircraft is on top of $373 million the Pentagon already has incurred for corrections of deficiencies discovered in development testing."

"The overruns, likely additional concurrency retrofitting costs and projected annual spending put at “major risk” the program’s “overall affordability,” the GAO said. “The program’s strategic framework, laden with concurrency, has proved to be problematic and ultimately, a very costly approach,” according to the agency."

"The risks will “progressively decline,” he said in his testimony. “There is no known design issue that cannot be overcome by effective engineering,” Kendall said. “There is much work still ahead but we believe we have put the program on sound footing,” he said."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-2 ... finds.html

[1st503rdsgt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QfSzgV1q5g

The whole joke, if you want it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EaHUpWuq ... re=related

[maus92]

More cost overruns, delays and uncertainty for F-35
Phillip Ewing | DoD Buzz

"The overall cost estimate for the whole program is now close to $400 billion, according to the Government Accountability Office, and although investigators were careful to note the progress DoD and Lockheed Martin have made in the past year, the overall picture remained very bleak."

"Sullivan said he had five main worries about the program: Its infamous software; the ongoing engineering changes necessitated by discoveries in flight testing; the sustained cost of the program, which will average about $13 billion per year from now until 2035 (!); the mission system “validation,” including the F-35’s off-board Autonomic Logistics Information System; and the complexity of the global supplier base.

On software, Sullivan said the F-35’s 24 million lines of code are “as complicated as anything on earth,” and it’ll take all of them working as intended before the F-35 can perform as advertised. On cost, GAO’s report reinforces the worry that defense analysts have been voicing for years — the large sustained yearly costs for the F-35 not only will continue more or less in perpetuity, but in the case of the Air Force, they’ll come due even as the service must also buy full-rate production KC-46A tankers and new bombers.

F-35 program boss Vice Adm. David Venlet told lawmakers he still does not have an estimate for when the F-35 will reach its initial operational capability, although the committee members could not be bothered to ask why. GAO’s report gives an explanation: The program is not performing reliably enough for them to try to guess: “Until greater clarity is provided on the program’s path forward, the military services are likely to wait to commit to new initial operational capability dates,” GAO said."

"And one of the central “achievements” of the program over the last year — the lifting of the B’s “probation” — may not have meant anything at all. Not only because “probation” was a non-thing, as you’ve read here, but because the “fixes” engineers proposed are themselves temporary, GAO found:

"While several technical issues have been addressed and some potential solutions engineered, assessing whether the deficiencies are resolved is ongoing and, in some cases, will not be known for years. According to the program office, two of the five specific problems cited are considered to be fixed while the other three have temporary fixes in place. The Director, Operational Test and Evaluation reported that significant work remains to verify and incorporate modifications to correct known STOVL deficiencies and prepare the system for operational use. Until the proposed technical solutions have been fully tested and demonstrated, it cannot be determined if the technical problems have been resolved.""

Read more: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/03/20/more- ... z1phNQCw62
DoDBuzz.com

[bumtish]

Oh dear, if this really continues as badly as portayed the F-35 might end up being nearly as costly as the Eurofighter!

[quicksilver]

Same overruns Senator McCain got his panties in a wad over last summer.

Warning: this is not the annual GAO report. It is a preliminary report used as Mr Sullivan's written SFTR (Statement for the Record).

The full report will be issued some weeks hence and the churn will start over again, with many claiming yet more overruns.

[maus92]

Here is a link to the GAO study /testimony / statement:

JOINT STRIKE FIGHTER Restructuring Added Resources and Reduced Risk, but Concurrency Is Still a Major Concern

Statement of Michael J. Sullivan, Director
Acquisition and Sourcing Management

http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/589454.pdf

[archeman]

The GAO could say,
" We aren't concerned. " but then, that wouldn't leave them much else to say would it.

[That_Engine_Guy]

When is Congress going to get back the Trillion or so $$ still outstanding to Wall Street?

That would finance ALL the F-35s planned for their entire life-cycle!

Who's pi$$ing about a billion in technology, hardware, military superiority, and safety for our pilots and troops when we can throw $4+ TRILLION at the wealthiest 1% of Americans and not blink an eye when they don't pay a TRILLION or so back!?!

I think someone is out of focus here...
TEG

[velocityvector]

Too big to fail redux. Interesting how the patterns the middle and professional classes experience continue generation to generation. It's almost as if Ike was correct, there really is a military-industrial complex soaking up public expenditures because that's where the money is.

[southernphantom]

When is Congress going to get back the Trillion or so $$ still outstanding to Wall Street?

That would finance ALL the F-35s planned for their entire life-cycle!

Who's pi$$ing about a billion in technology, hardware, military superiority, and safety for our pilots and troops when we can throw $4+ TRILLION at the wealthiest 1% of Americans and not blink an eye when they don't pay a TRILLION or so back!?!

I think someone is out of focus here...
TEG

Just think of how many Raptors and JSFs we could manufacture and sustain for that amount...money down the drain

[river_otter]

Lockheed F-35 Overruns Top $1 Billion, Government Auditor Finds
Tony Capaccio | Bloomberg

"The $1 billion in cost increases for the first 63 aircraft is on top of $373 million the Pentagon already has incurred for corrections of deficiencies discovered in development testing."

Wow, that's slightly over $4 a person to a nation the size of the US. *yawn* How will we ever afford it?

[svenphantom]

Lockheed F-35 Overruns Top $1 Billion, Government Auditor Finds
Tony Capaccio | Bloomberg

"The $1 billion in cost increases for the first 63 aircraft is on top of $373 million the Pentagon already has incurred for corrections of deficiencies discovered in development testing."

Wow, that's slightly over $4 a person to a nation the size of the US. *yawn* How will we ever afford it?

That's assuming people actually pay taxes (which quite a bit probably don't).

[batu731]

“The program’s strategic framework, laden with concurrency, has proved to be problematic and ultimately, a very costly approach,”

IMO this 'framework' is the biggest lesson of this program, it only serves to further complicate the program, delay the schedule, and ultimately increase the cost, possibly by an order of magnitude. See below as an example

"While several technical issues have been addressed and some potential solutions engineered, assessing whether the deficiencies are resolved is ongoing and, in some cases, will not be known for years.

Lockheed should have focused solely on the engineering and testing, and kicked off this "concurrent" idea when the jet is fully IOC and ready for mass production.

Now they got themselves into this massive internal contention of resources between the development and production. and ultimately it's all tax payer's dollars.

[SpudmanWP]

The "concurrency" idea was not LM's, but the DoD's due to the need to get the jets in the air ASAP. It was a requirement of the JSF project regardless of it the F-35 or F-32 were chosen..