The U.S. government is pressing F-35 international partners to make a firmer commitment to the $391 billion program by signing on to a “block buy” of some 450 fighters over three years, Lockheed Martin said Monday at the Paris Air Show. That would lend certainty to a program that has thus far delivered only a handful of fighters to its eight partners.
“Each of the countries associated with the program are being asked right now if they’d like to participate in that, and this would be to make a commitment for the aircraft purchase,” said Lorraine Martin, Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program executive vice president and general manager. “A block buy enables us…to lock down three years of the program,” she added.
According to Martin a multinational commitment could comprise 460 to 500 U.S. and partner nation orders from 2018 to 2020–somewhat more fighters than earlier indicated. In a separate briefing on Monday, Mark Buongiorno, vice president of Pratt & Whitney’s F135 engine program, said the engine supplier is providing information to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) for an estimated buy of 150 fighters per year over that period.
“Right now, we’re supporting the DOD with studies to estimate what type of cost reduction will come from this higher production rate procurement,” Buongiorno said. “We’re looking at a three-year procurement [in the] roughly 150-range of aircraft, and engines and spares to go along with that.”
Frank Kendall, DOD undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, announced the “block buy” approach last month while attending the F-35 CEO Conference in Oslo, Norway. This is an annual meeting of partner nations and industry participants to discuss the status of the F-35 program. Lockheed Martin expects the concept will “play into [the] decision making” of partner nations as they go through their various procurement processes, Martin said.
Thus far, Lockheed Martin has delivered two F-35s to the UK, although they are presently based at Edwards Air Force Base, California and the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort, South Carolina; two to Australia, currently based at Luke AFB in Arizona; and one to the Netherlands, also based at Edwards AFB. The company expects to deliver a third F-35 for the UK later this year.
If all partner nations keep to their original procurement plans, the manufacturer expects that by 2020 half of production at its Forth Worth, Texas, facility will be for international F-35s.
Following Martin’s briefing, Lockheed Martin offered an indication of the pressure that is being applied as the F-35 program emerges from its system development and demonstration phase, which is expected to be completed in 2017. The manufacturer and Terma, of Denmark, signed a memorandum of understanding that would secure Terma as a supplier for the F-35 over the life of the program–but only if Denmark selects the F-35 for its fighter replacement program.
Lockheed Martin is offering Danish industry $5.5 billion in industrial participation over a production run of some 3,000 F-35s, said executive vice president Orlando Carvalho. If the Danish government does not select the F-35 “we would respect that decision,” he said. But the long-term participation of Danish industry on the program “would be something that we would have to revisit.”
Comments
Don Bacon
June 16, 2015 - 9:59am
Multi-year procurements, which the Pentagon (acquisition chief Frank Kendall) intends, are prohibited during system development by 10 U.S. Code § 2306b. Kendall intends to evade the law by calling his MYP a "block buy" which is Pentagon-speak not covered by any statute. This evasion of the law has been done before, but never on this scale.
The meaning of the law is that F-35 MYP could start only after Milestone C production decision, April 2019, when the plane's design would be approved. According to 10 U.S. Code § 2306b - Multiyear contracts require "That there is a stable design for the property to be acquired and that the technical risks associated with such property are not excessive."
The F-35 is still deep in development. As a result of engineering changes mandated by past and future testing these faulty planes will all be subject to retrofit at great cost, at depots yet to be built and staffed, a situation (i.e. "concurrency") once described by Kendall as "acquisition malpractice" when it was on a small scale not involving hundreds of aircraft as his new plan would do. That would be mucho-malpractice and just plain wrong. There is no need to break the law, and it's stupid to do so particularly when the only reason for it is to enhance LockMart profits.
Money would be saved by obeying the law, and in the meantime improving quality at the F-35 Ft. Worth factory, which has been found deficient by the Pentagon Inspector General. That's another reason not to ramp up production. Sloppy workmanship is expensive.
In any case potential foreign buyers seem less than enthusiastic about buying these expensive works-in-progress so that's a good sign.