Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Prinz_Eugn wrote:

Well, what I'm wondering if it's just a product of our design culture. We value performance to the degree that cost and schedule are sacrificed pretty often, which gets you expensive world-beating aircraft like the F-22. This is in contrast to the Eurofighter, which is super cost-conscious to the point where early variants are missing very basic capability to better fit the cost targets.

Yeah and they still cost about $110 million each.

Lets try and bring this thread back top reality. Clearly there are many on this forum who lack a basic understanding of how large projects are managed and cost controlled. Here is what Ashton Carter is saying about what is going to be done going forward in production in order top better manage costs.

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And he recognized that and put in place a number of measures to try to cap and control that cost, which include the fixed-price contracting that I described, a "should cost" effort, which is an analysis independently by us of what the Joint Strike Fighter should cost so that we have our own estimate of that and not just the contractor's estimate of that,

http://www.defense.gov/transcripts/tran ... iptid=4585

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You're also ignoring the other extreme. Often costs increase and delays are incurred because Congress and the Pentagon often change the design requirements. Often so-called budget cuts; end up increasing costs and causing delays and many other problems.

Often government interference is the cause of costs increases and delays. So if you think who is at fault should pay; then the government should be fined; therefore the government should pay the manufacturer more money and the government should refund money to the taxpayer; because the government has been incompetent, indecisive and derelict. Regretfully people like you want to give corrupt politicians more power and more money at the expense of the taxpayer and capitalism.

Actually, I agree with what you say here, which is why in my first post I stated that the price control "rule" would only hold if the buyer i.e. the government, does not cut the buy (and may I add, does not defer the buy for later). My object isn't to give politicians more power; quite the contrary, it's to set up rules that both governments and contractors should abide by in order for the procurement process to go smoothly. Thereby, this should make for more efficient use of the money that we as taxpayers pay the government.

As an aside...
Capitalism is a synonym for free markets. But does this mean that those markets be without any rules? There's already plenty of government involvement and intervention in the markets (does the phrase "$700 billion" bring anything specific to mind?). I'm not a big fan of government intervention in the markets, but does anyone who knows what was going on sincerely believe that we would have been better off had the government stood by and not done anything?

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You could do this if you want to kill our aviation and electronics industry. If the price of the materials go up, they have no choice but to pass that along.
No one can stay in business for long if they sell products for a lower price than it costs to make them.

That's why I said my plan wasn't perfect... but it's a start. You could have a system where you check and see, did the materials really go up? Did mismanagement of the project contribute to not getting the materials when they were of lower cost? Which part is responsible for the mismanagement (i.e. government or contractor)? You shouldn't penalize a contractor for price increases which are outside of its control.

So long as the general contractor is sourcing parts on the basis of congressional district location instead of on price, quality, and service, military aircraft are going to continue to be very poor bang for the buck. And not even the most fervent acquisition reformist is going to go for changing that...

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That's why I said my plan wasn't perfect... but it's a start. You could have a system where you check and see, did the materials really go up? Did mismanagement of the project contribute to not getting the materials when they were of lower cost? Which part is responsible for the mismanagement (i.e. government or contractor)? You shouldn't penalize a contractor for price increases which are outside of its control.

Yeah, we could start holding people accountable for once in government and business. I say if someone screws up, the get written up. If they do it again, you now have paper trail and can fire their a$$.

I wish I could have jumped in here earlier. I have been a government program manager on big projects. We tried firm fixed price contracts in the past and they failed miserably. Why? Because the only way to win a contract was to underbid the competition. And as we know costs always go up. The result was that the contractor either went cheap on the construction (bad for us) or go broke. They owe it to their stockholders to not do the latter, so once they can't make it any cheaper to make they often find ways to cause the contract to be canceled before being eaten alive.

Cost plus contracts are audited to make sure the contractor isn't blowing smoke on the costs and as a result they usually aren't. I guarantee you that the price increase on any project, especially the F-35 was fully visible to the govt from day 1.

Another option tried was cost plus award fee (CPAF). If they meet certain goals (cost, performance, schedule), they get a bonus. Problem is they are hard to grade and the govt ends up paying most if not all of of the award because, well, the contractors usually have better lawyers.

Then there's the cost plus incentive fee (CPIF). These kinds of contracts allow the contractor to reap some of the savings as incentive to keep cost down. Problem is...wait for it...cost never goes down. So the "I" never materializes.

Now we're advocating going back to the tried and not-proven once again.

My experience is that the contract vehicle isn't the issue. The real problems are (1) we always shoot for more than state-of the art and the cost to reach that goal kills us, (2) projects take too long (see #1) so we keep discovering new cool toys we suddenly can't live without which spirals back to #1 again.

Then there's Congress who doles out the funding piecemeal so there's no certainty of future buys, so the economies of scale are completely lost. Then there's the way that the government divides the money up into colors and sub-colors and sub-sub-colors. You can only buy the right stuff with the right money. Doesn't matter if you can get a deal...you can't spend the savings on something else you need, so you buy stuff you don't need (cuz if you don't spend it you don't get it again next year...how's that for negative incentive.)

We tried spiral acquisition. Idea was that it meant we set our IOC requirements at 80% now and slowly build up to the final product when it's ready. It failed so badly we aren't allowed to use the "S" word anymore. Why? It made sense. It really became an excuse for missing on the first try and continuing to chase that elusive technology. I believe in new term now is evolutionary acquisition. Good luck with that.

The Army on the other hand wants what they can get NOW. No glitz, no bling. Even if it means replacing the entire system in 5 years because it's suddenly obsolete...

USAF can't shoot for anything less than the stars...Army can't see past the next defilade.

Somewhere in the middle is the answer.

Salute!

Adding to Roscoe's observations...

After retiring and flying the Viper for almost 5 years, I was an engineer in the defense industry. We primarily supported the big boys with armament system design and weapon integration.

My experience was USAF, and to a lesser extent, USN kept adding "requirements' that were not in the original request for proposal. Then they added more requirements if we had a "flyoff" or a demonstration program.

Some systems are as Roscoe alluded to - they become obsolete very quickly. If fact, if the services keep adding to the design they may even be obsolete before they are fielded in quantity!!!

The Viper is the best example of keeping things simple and going from concept to actual IOC in about 7 years. Then, and only then did we start adding gizmos and improving the easiest things - the avionics. The basic aero design has served us extremely well, hasn't it?

Gen Mike Loh just wrote an op-ed about why we should not pursue an alternate engine for the F-35 and he mentions the logistics problems of the Viper due to two motors versus a common motor.

A great example of going with the platform and concept first, then improving avionics later was the LOCPOD ( low cost powered dispenser) of the mid - late 80's. The bidder had actually demonstrated an unpowered version and the sucker could be tossed from several miles away by a Viper ( knew a guy who did it) and glide to an area target such as an airfield or tank array or missile site. Once there it dispensed a variety of submunitions as the launch platform had turned and scooted away.

The bidder proposed adding three motors from 'winders to increase launch range - hell, from a B-52 or B-1 it could go over 30 miles!!

The thing used GPS for guidance and didn't need the "secure" p-code crapola to drop within the tgt area. This is in 1987 or so, and look what happened to the accuracy of the basic GPS within just a few more years. Look at JDAM accuracy.

So the thing looked good to me, especially after the Brits lost a few Tornados in Desert Storm trying to overfly fields to use their dispenser.

Then USAF wonders if we can't use a terrain-matching system in case the GPS goes bonkers. Price? About as much as the origiginal proposal just for the new guidance system.

Then USAF thinks we should use a small jet motor versus the three rockets in order to extend range by hundreds of kilometers. Price for the motor? About the same as the all-up round that had been proposed.

See what I mean?

The bidding company walked away finally. And I am sure the thing would have made a helluva impact in Desert Storm, as from demo version to test and production looked extremely quick. It was not a cosmic, do all, do for every mission, star wars system. Used very mature construction and aero technology except for the GPS guidance. With targeting technology we have today I think the thing would still be around for more precise airstrikes. And lemme tellya, the thing was dirt cheap compared to the JAASM and other cruise missile doofers I have not yet seen deployed.

Gums sends ...

To Roscoe and Gums
I really appreciate your comments on ' the way things are', as opposed to the way that they are often portrayed in the media and by posturing politicians.

I'm sure that the contractors aren't always blameless, but I think that a fair portion of the cost issues have to do with the customer, as well as the political aspect. My personal favorite is cutting the number to be built, and then claiming the savings to be the number cancelled times the NEW unit cost. (B-2 anyone?)

Defense costs are an issue, but I don't think that we'll ever make any real progress until all parties work on their own issues first. (I can dream, can't I?)

Forum: General F-22A Raptor forum

Price controls for fighter planes?