http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/29/us/in ... _190910966
Behind the scenes, the Pentagon and the F-35’s main contractor, Lockheed Martin, are engaged in a conflict of their own over the costs. The relationship “is the worst I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been in some bad ones,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Bogdan of the Air Force, a top program official, said in September. “I guarantee you: we will not succeed on this if we do not get past that.”
Lockheed has delivered 41 planes so far for testing and initial training, and Pentagon leaders are slowing purchases of the F-35 to fix the latest technical problems and reduce the immediate costs. A helmet for pilots that projects targeting data onto its visor is too jittery to count on. The tail-hook on the Navy jet has had trouble catching the arresting cable, meaning that version cannot yet land on carriers. And writing and testing the millions of lines of software needed by the jets is so daunting that General Bogdan said, “It scares the heck out of me.”
With all the delays — full production is not expected until 2019 — the military has spent billions to extend the lives of older fighters and buy more of them to fill the gap. At the same time, the cost to build each F-35 has risen to an average of $137 million from $69 million in 2001.
The jets would cost taxpayers $396 billion, including research and development, if the Pentagon sticks to its plan to build 2,443 by the late 2030s. That would be nearly four times as much as any other weapons system and two-thirds of the $589 billion the United States has spent on the war in Afghanistan. The military is also desperately trying to figure out how to reduce the long-term costs of operating the planes, now projected at $1.1 trillion.
“The plane is unaffordable,” said Winslow T. Wheeler, an analyst at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington.
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While weapons cost overruns have long been a problem, the F-35 is also running into the changing budget realities, and a new focus on rivalry with China, that will probably require shifting money to a broader mix of planes.
Lockheed is fixing the most glaring problems. A support wall in the fuselage of the Marine version — the only one that can land like a helicopter — was strengthened after it cracked in a test in 2010. The tail-hook on the Navy model was just seven feet behind the landing gear, much closer than on other Navy planes. After the wheels flattened the arresting cable, the cable did not bounce up quickly enough for the hook to grab it. Lockheed is reshaping the hook to try to scoop up the cable.
But the “gorilla in the room,” General Bogdan said, is testing and securing the 24 million lines of software code for the plane and its support systems, a mountain of instructions that goes far beyond what has been tried in any plane.
Lockheed needs more foreign orders to realize volume savings and get closer to the Pentagon’s targets of $79 million to $106 million a plane, depending on the model. But to get those orders, said Mr. Aboulafia, the Teal Group analyst, Lockheed must be more aggressive in cutting its prices, especially since the allies have their own economic difficulties.
This year, Italy cut its planned order 30 percent. Britain and Australia have delayed decisions on how many F-35s to buy. Lawmakers in Canada and the Netherlands are questioning the costs.
And while Congress continues to support the F-35, the leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee are concerned that production is now set to ramp up later in this decade just as two other major projects — the refueling tankers and a $55 billion stealth bomber program — will seek financing.
On top of that, the F-35 could be too sophisticated for minor conflicts, and its relatively short flight range could be a problem as the Pentagon changes its view of possible threats. Mark Gunzinger, a retired Air Force colonel who is now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said the Pentagon would need to shift money to longer-range planes as China and other countries expanded the reach of missiles capable of destroying American ships and bases.
or at times provides some good facts to make others change there opinions.
to be really counted to be taken to a war and be successful
