Forum: General F-35 Forum

retchief70 wrote:

That depends on your definition of multirole.

The ability to perform any mission required of the airframe with minimal changes (ie swapping a pod) and the ability to adapt missions in flight.
Missions & Features include (but are not limited to):

Simultaneous A2A & A2G ops
Day & Night ops
All-Weather ops
Air Interception
Close Air Support
ASuW
SEAD/DEAD
Recce
Networked

Wide range of A2A & A2G munitions to include:
BVR missiles
PGMs
ASM
Nukes (where appropriate)

geogen wrote:

If one is going to use the 1972 FY-16 date, then go back to X-35 dates for apples to apples. Hence, it's arguably more relevant to go with the order to start building FSD F-16s (test jets) back in 1975 (delivered in late 1976) as a start date.

The reason they delivered in 1976 is because it was virtually the same jet as the YF-16 (sensors and airframe). The F-25, OTOH, was a complete redesign as the X-35 was just a tech demonstrator primarily used to validate the lifting fan vs direct lift usage. The X-35 did not have any avionics (besides basic flight computer) , was not using a F135, and had no internal bomb bay. Were you also aware that the USAF changed the JSF requirements before the flyoff began and LM had to factor those changes into the final F-35 design?

There is a reason why the YF-16 and YF-22 has a "Y" and the X-35 had a "X".

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twintwinsingle wrote:

sferrin wrote:

geogen wrote:

It was operational and kicking (after the initial mistake jets were fixed) within a very short time after being given orders to build production jets!

Respects.

Very easy to do when you don't ask much of it. The original F-16 was barely more than a day fighter. It had no BVR, no LANTIRN type system, no ability to self-designate. With the F-35 they're asking for one of the most (if not the most) sophisticated sensor suite right out of the gate. That's on top of stealth, internal weapons carriage, a STOVL version, and a carrier version. There really is NO jet that has ever been in service that would be an apples-to-apples comparison.

SFerrin, the difficulty of designing and fielding the F-35 is exactly my point. It is ambitious, perhaps the most ambitious fighter project in history. The point is, LM either had absolutely no idea how long it would take and how much it would cost to do it OR they knew and low-balled the bid in order to be declared the winner...twice...on consecutive major fighter projects. The F-16A was a day fighter, but that's what the contract required and that's what GD delivered. The F-4 was a fleet interceptor for the USN and a strike fighter for the USAF...that's what the contract required and that's what was delivered. In all business, not just aerospace, the most important part of a bid on a contract is the accuracy of that bid. Can your company accurately predict how much it will cost and how long it will take to deliver a product? If you can do that and also deliver a quality product, even if your bid is a bit higher, you will get return business. If you can't you start to lose customers quickly. If you got bids for an addition to your house and the guy you went with said it would take 3 months and cost $50000 and he took 9 months and cost $150000, that would be unacceptable. You wouldn't care that you had asked for him to use a kind of granite he hadn't used before or solar powered lights or whatever...you would expect him to have taken that into account when he bid the project. The point is not that no airplane has been fielded with the F-35's capabilities, the point is that LM has done an absolutely terrible job, on two consecutive major fighter programs, of predicting their timeline and unit costs. Period. That is what the MO contingent is arguing and they are correct in doing so.

It was going to expensive now matter how you sliced it. Imagine the total cost for one stealthy replacement for the F-16, another for the F/A-18 and a 3rd for the Harrier. They studied the problem for years and what they went with was found to be the best all around choice.

As for timelines and cost, that's what happens when the politicians get involved. You want to heap blame on LM when you really should be pointing your finger at Washington. You think cutting F-22 production from 750 units down to 187 isn't going to have an effect?

I suspect that part of the IOC delay is because the Vice Adm. Venlet & SecDef has a limited tolerance for "mistake jets" which is running out. When the F-16 was new, the relative cost of the jet was low enough that turning a most of the Block 1 jets into instructional airframes could be tolerated. Having most of the LRIP jets prematurely grounded because of structural issues wouldn't be tolerated.

On a related topic, how much of the F-35 aircraft costs are actually airframe structure vs avionics, engines etc.?

Agreed, Sferrin, it surely was going to be expensive. But when the requirement was for a jet to field in 10 years time, for $40-50 MIL a piece, with stealth, supersonic, STOVL and CV variants, sensor fusion, etc. and you bid and say that that's what you can deliver and when you can deliver it, and then you don't, that is not really the fault of Washington. I don't work at LM and never have, but I've worked with them on several projects and my honest opinion is that they never thought they could make that timeline or that price point. They knew it would slip significantly and price would go up substantially. In the end, in an all or nothing contract, especially if your lawyers are good, all that matters is getting the contract award. After that, you can jack-up the price, slide the timeline right and ratchet back capabilities until follow-on blocks. That is the LM way, apparently. They did it on the A-10C (saw that up close and personal), on the Raptor and on the F-35.

If the contract requirements are not acheivable in the time alloted and for the price requested (as seems to be the implication here when we talk about how ambitious the project is), the responsibility lies with the contractor bidding to say that they can't meet the requirements in that timeframe or for that price. That is how requirements get adjusted. I'm not suggesting that Boeing's bid was anymore realistic than LM's...it probably wasn't. I'm saying that slip in delivery and capabilities as well as the increase in price gives Boeing a legitimate window of opportunity to challenge LM, at least in the near term. If the F-35 would have delivered in 2009, for even 60 or 70 Mil a piece, and was well into OT today, I don't think Boeing would have a leg to stand on. But that stuff didn't happen and Boeing, as they should, is siezing this opportunity to highlight LM's shortcomings.

neurotech wrote:

On a related topic, how much of the F-35 aircraft costs are actually airframe structure vs avionics, engines etc.?

The Latest budget numbers are as follows (in $USD Mil):
Version (Airframe/Avionics/Engine)
F-35A = 78.5/25.1/14.4
F-35B = 89.4/24.3/36.4
F-35C = 97.2/24.3/14.4

Keep in mind that the "engine" cost of the F-35B also includes the liftfan.

neurotech wrote:

I suspect that part of the IOC delay is because the Vice Adm. Venlet & SecDef has a limited tolerance for "mistake jets" which is running out. When the F-16 was new, the relative cost of the jet was low enough that turning a most of the Block 1 jets into instructional airframes could be tolerated. Having most of the LRIP jets prematurely grounded because of structural issues wouldn't be tolerated.

That sounds like a pretty fair assessment.

It would be as if the original F-16 'ACF' Program starting FSD in 1975 set out to develop and test a visionary and 'game-changing' block 50/52 as the initial operating block for export and deployment. Such a development would give the F-16 an SDD completion of around 1991-1992 and target an estimated IOC date of 1993-1994 or so, for the first operational block flown in Air Forces around the world. There would no doubt have been a bit of anxiety and protest along the way.

twintwinsingle wrote:

Agreed, Sferrin, it surely was going to be expensive. But when the requirement was for a jet to field in 10 years time, for $40-50 MIL a piece, with stealth, supersonic, STOVL and CV variants, sensor fusion, etc. and you bid and say that that's what you can deliver and when you can deliver it, and then you don't, that is not really the fault of Washington. ...

Yes, it is really the fault of Washington. Because that's how the process works. LM didn't invent the process. Everyone, Boeing included, knows that's how the process works. Washington invented the process that works that way. Why wouldn't everyone know it works that way? Government contract bidding is a process invented by career liars, who bid packs of lies to the voters every 2, 4, or 6 years to get elected. LM and Boeing just played by Washington's well-understood rules. LM played better. (And anyone looking at the X-32 can tell they played it better from the fighter design standpoint even more than from the bidding standpoint.) Nobody familiar with government defense contracts in even the most peripheral way expected the JSF to come in on time or within budget. Not LM, not Boeing, not the folks in the Pentagon who decided to award the contract, and not the professional liars who voted funding for it. LM put together the best bid, and subsequently deviated from the initial proposal as needed, still within the rules of Washington's process.

You'll notice nobody with any autonomy uses a process anything like the government contracting process. When I want something, I use my judgment to figure out what will serve me best, and pick it. I don't pretend to be fair and impartial, I rule out items and even entire vendors I don't want, I decide which options are good enough, and pick the one I want most. Sometimes that's based on best price among the acceptable options. Sometimes it's based on best features for a given price. Sometimes it's based on best features within my budget. Sometimes I look at the feature set and go over my initial budget. Sometimes it's based on trust or familiarity. Sometimes it's based on "I want that one." Sometimes it's based on "I'll pass by there on the way home anyway" or "they're closest" or "I know they have one in stock and I want it today." Sometimes I pick a suboptimal bid for X because I want to keep someone in business for a more important bid for Y.

Quote:

If the contract requirements are not acheivable in the time alloted and for the price requested (as seems to be the implication here when we talk about how ambitious the project is), the responsibility lies with the contractor bidding to say that they can't meet the requirements in that timeframe or for that price. That is how requirements get adjusted.

You're asking for someone to price out, accurately even(!), something that doesn't yet exist. When that something includes components that don't yet exist. And where many of the technologies in those components don't yet exist. That's not even the required process, much less a realistic process. The required process is a bid, plus just a reasonably good-faith paper justification for why each bidder thinks their bid is realistic. And since the cheapest bid is almost invariably picked, there's a strong incentive to be as rosy with the estimates as is at all justifiable. Then when the imaginary, overly-rosy assumptions justifying the bid price turn out to be nothing but ink on paper, they submit more ink on paper with updated assumptions underlying a revised estimate, and various contracting officers are micromanaged all the way up to Congress on whether to bend to reality, cancel the contract, or bloviate and then bend to reality or cancel the contract.

A more sane and honest process would do away with any pretense that the imaginary estimates are actually binding contracts, and give the contracting officers a lot more autonomy to choose among bids. Bids would not be a single price, but a range from "with a lot of luck, we may be able to get it done for this amount," to "we actually think we can for somewhere around this amount," to "this is the absolute budget limit and everything will have to be paid back, even going after personal property of our executives and board, if we go over." With those estimates negotiated between the contractors and contracting officer rather than being secret bids by the various prospective contractors. Contract for "think we can," with an acknowledgement that they understand the budget limit. Then let the chosen contractor keep some of the difference if they come in closer to "with a lot of luck." If they don't like the negotiated absolute budget limit then they can withdraw the bid. If they come in between "think we can" and the budget limit there should be slight penalties to the total profit, but it should remain profitable right up to the limit. Basically the cheaper they go while meeting the KPPs, the higher their actual profits should be allowed to be.

Give the contracting officers more authority with less oversight to pick and choose among the final bids. And give them more authority with less oversight to adjust the contracts in the face of reality. Other than accepting bribes and kickbacks, or exceeding the hard cap budget, the contracting officers should basically be able to make whatever choices they feel are necessary to get the contract completed. Only if they feel the hard cap budget justifiably needs to be exceeded should the process ever go above the level of the contracting officer's immediate supervisor.

Of course, that process could never happen, because it would deny legislators a chance to bloviate.

Don't forget to factor in the "actually, the requirement you designed it too up to now is outdated, and we need to add something to it" part.

count_to_10 wrote:

Don't forget to factor in the "actually, the requirement you designed it too up to now is outdated, and we need to add something to it" part.

I'd put that under "more authority and less oversight to adjust the contracts in the face of reality." If you have the budget margin available, and there's a need, why not? Unless it blows away the overall budget cap, that's just part of getting the project done. I also think it would be a less frequent issue if the contracting officers had more autonomy in picking the bids in the first place. If you're not always forced to pick the low bid, you can look at the product associated with each bid, and pick a more capable or adaptable option (within budget cap) from the start if it looks like the specifications may be fragile.

If you are going to wind up blowing past the budget cap, that really is something that requires higher level input. Contracting officers shouldn't be able to obligate Congress to a budget that wasn't approved. But once the funds are approved, the contracting officer should be able to use them as needed.

And there's also the flip side. Technological progress or geopolitical events can render a thus-far successful project (or feature of a project) worthless, or show that while a feature would be useful, it's infeasible or too expensive. A contracting officer shouldn't be able to just cancel the project or remove entire baseline specs on their own say-so. But they should be able to delete or downgrade some less-necessary or technologically infeasible features. (To some extent this has actually been done in real projects, albeit with far too much red tape. The DDG-1000 is being built with second-rate e-motors using a more mature but less efficient design, because the desired motor technology was taking too long to mature. However, the DDG-1000 is also a prime example of why authority should rest with the contracting officer who is actually familiar with the project. Nearly all the problems that rendered the DDG-1000 a likely failure were due to Congress deciding the original Land Attack Destroyer specifications called for too much tonnage for a "destroyer." Very few politicians are engineers. Tonnage is cheap. Trying to force too small a hull for the technologies employed and capabilities required was far more expensive. If anything they should have made it even bigger.)

What I actually meant was the way that actual requirements sometimes change in the middle of the development period. That can add cost to the developer that was not included in the initial bid, which means that the contract has to be increased by some amount.

count_to_10 wrote:

...actual requirements sometimes change in the middle of the development period...

Requirements will ALWAYS change over the course of an 18-20 year period, which is why the F-16's incremental upgrade Program between block 1 to block 50/52+ was such a successful business model. Incremental block upgrades simply provided the latest capability enhancement to meet requirements, as the requirements changed year to year..

If the first production F-16 model originally being marketed for operational requirements was a game-changing block 50/52, to be IOC by early/mid-90's, the F-16 Program would have never been as successful as it was and both risk and costs would have been higher all along the way. Capabilities and deterrence would have likely been decreased as well, while holding off... waiting for F-16 deliveries and having to SLEP F-104's and F-4's et al.

One problem with the F-35 is that requirement needs might be identified today, which could take 10-12 years to deliver in a future deferred block update. For example, it's arguably the popularly envisioned block V which would be the mature and game-changing F-35 capability, (if it had been operational by around 2018).

Who even know's when the fully-configured block IV, as originally required, will actually be delivered and finally given an IOC date!?

The definitive F-16 block was Blk30. It gave the F-16 its first full multi-role capability. Everything after that was just icing on the cake.

The Blk50 of the F-16 is more akin to the F-35's Blk6/7.

Btw, they are already working of Blk4 and it should go IOC shortly after Blk3.

Oh really? A notional Blk IV (requirements subject to change) achieving IOC shortly after Blk III? In 2020-21 perhaps, as some more conservative observers of the Program had estimated years ago? Or maybe that is not such a conservative estimate now, given the future uncertainties and recent estimates moving farther to the right?

Also, the F-16CJ 50/52 blcok gave a little more next-gen 'game-changing' capability (a bit more than mere icing) than the initial block 30 when it was first delivered. Hence the viability of a seamless and sustainable incremental upgrade approach to producing fighters. That is, don't try to develop something so game-changing, off the top, as your mainstay 'low-cost' piece of the Tacair mix... as the delays will be fearsome as well as the cost-overruns -- at the expense of widening capability gaps while waiting.

Blk 3 is planned to exit SDD in 2016. How long this takes to reach IOC after that (due to IOT&E timeline) bears little on the Blk4 timeline.

Since Blk4 is mostly software & weapons integration, its timeline (considering it has already started) should be relatively short.

On the F-16 Blk 30 vs 50, you're taking the EOL F-16 block and trying to compare it to the F-35's IOC block. Blk30 was more of a "game changer" when compared to earlier capabilities, than Blk50 is.

Quote:

The definitive F-16 block was Blk30. It gave the F-16 its first full multi-role capability.

Spudman, you persist in short changing the later block F-16A/Bs. Yes, they weren't as capable as the C/Ds, but they were certainly multirole (able to perform more than a single mission). Interdiction, CAS, intercept (yes, without BVR weapons), and do it at night. They were nuke capable. No smart bombs, but they could put munitions on target accurately. We used to say, "we didn't have smart bombs, but we had a smart airplane." The IAF did a pretty good job on Saddem's reactor, thank goodness. Don't get me wrong. As I've said before I'm not anti F-35, but I think it's a cryin' shame it's going to take at least 12 years from first flight to IOC for the JSF, no matter how you rationalize it.

Forum: General F-35 Forum

IOC or else