Keep the faith

The following week, Vice Admiral David Venlet, the head of the JPO and the architect of the program’s new cost and development schedules following last year’s comprehensive technical baseline review (TBR), briefed specialist media in Washington on April 21 on the program’s progress in recent months.

“We call it our Annual CEO Conference and we have the [Pentagon acquisitions chief] Dr [Ashton] Carter-level of the other national armament directors from our partner countries, with the CEOs of the core industry team,” VADM Venlet explained. “I think it was good to be in Fort Worth because the day prior the partner leadership got to see the production line activity. ” The straight-talking Venlet explained that he thought the visit to Fort Worth was “confidence generating” for the CEOs and program heads to see one year after 2010’s Nunn McCurdy breach under which the program was placed under review. “When we met last year, it was right in the middle of the declaration of the breach,” VADM Venlet added.

Since last year, the entire program has been rescoped and recosted, and thus more than US$4. 6 billion and two years were added to the system development and design (SDD) phases.

“So what has happened in the last year, we gave them that update,” VADM Venlet continued. “What I wanted to leave them with is that ‘your confidence is important to the program, but your confidence has to be earned’. ” As he proved when he visited Australia for the Australian International Airshow in February and March, the Admiral is generally reserved and doesn’t easily express confidence or like making predictions about the program, and prefers to take more of a ‘wait and see’ approach when talking to media. But in this latest media round table, he showed at least some cautious optimism that the corner was about to be turned. “I believe that the flight test program is now very active and very productive,” he said.

“I believe the production activity is also very active now and. . . there is stability starting to appear in the manufacturing activity.

There are a lot of jets in flow, so that was very impressive for the countries to see. ” But he tempered his enthusiasm by adding, “Notice I didn’t say it’s productive yet because we have to deliver the jets before . . .

I [could] call it productive. ” VADM Venlet said that this year and next are “very pivotal years” for the program, in that it will need to show that costs are under control and that production is stable, and that the actual costs of the fourth low rate initial production (LRIP 4) batch of aircraft, which was signed last year, will be revealed. “We’re probably justapproaching about the early first 10 per cent of LRIP 4 production and I’m waiting to see actuals align to the baseline with that before we can really see,” he explained.

“That should be happening very soon. And then we will be negotiating LRIP 5. And I think that will be a very strong signal externally to what both Lockheed and we think about costs being under control. ” Reuters reported on May 2 that Lockheed Martin’s initial bid for the LRIP 5 contract, which was submitted on April 25 and is due to be negotiated over the northern summer, had come in “(US)$5 to (US)$7 million higher” per aircraft than the LRIP 4 contract, although this is an initial offer and the actual price will likely be somewhat lower after negotiations are completed. And as Aviation Week’s Ares blog surmised on May 3, it is unlikely Lockheed Martin has made much of a margin on these first batches of aircraft following delays in the production ramp up, and is perhaps now looking to recoup some of these losses.

And a week after VADM Venlet’s briefing, Reuters and Bloomberg also reported that the actual costs for the first three LRIP batches were tracking higher than what had been contracted. An Ares blog added that these costs are thought to be close to some of the worst case estimates that had been projected by the Pentagon’s Joint Estimating Team II (JET 2), and higher than the 2009 Select Acquisition Report (SAR). The total cost overrun reportedly falls somewhere between US$707million and US$964million for the 28 aircraft acquired in the three LRIP batches, or between 11 and 15 per cent.

This indicates more work needs to be done to meet contracted cost goals.

VADM Venlet was also asked about the programs sustainability costs, particularly in light of a 2009 NAVAIR report – from an organisation he formerly headed – that showed, despite the program’s goal for the F-35 to be as much as 50 per cent cheaper to support in service, that costs were actually going to be higher than those of current fighters such as the F/A-18 and F-16.

“The previous estimates that certainly I was involved in at NAVAIR and other folks including Air Force cost estimators, have all predictions without any actuals to base themselves on,” he explained. “Frankly, we’re in that same condition today because this is the first year where we are going to begin delivering aircraft, and we begin to gain actuals from fleet operation which will happen at the very end of this year going into next year. Yet, we are still able to look at the strategy for sustainment in a very disciplined way. ” To this end, the JPO will conduct a TBR-like activity for the sustainment side of the program, and VADM Venlet has appointed a dedicated team to conduct a “design review of all the aspects of sustainment from supply chain to repair to transportation. ” One of the problems in estimating the support costs of the F-35 is that the initial projections laid out early in the program had the global JSF fleet relying on Lockheed Martin’s Autonomic Logistics Information System (ALIS) to repair and replace parts as they were required, instead of having uniformed personnel repairing and warehousing vast stockpiles of spare parts as has been done in the past. But the USAF operates huge logistics support depots and has a huge maintenance workforce, and it is going to be politically very difficult to wind these back in just one generational change of combat aircraft. Similarly, the US Navy, when operating at sea, must be self-sufficient in being able to maintain and support its aircraft, and thus will not be able to fit easily into an ALIS structure.

For foreign partners such as Australia, the ALIS concept is an easier one to adapt to, as the ADF has already begun heading down that path in terms of ‘power by the hour’ performance based incentive support arrangements on aircraft such as the Hawk 127 and, to a certain extent, on the F/A‑18A/B Hornet fleet in recent years.

“The phrase performance based logistics, PBL, we are not walking away from that,” VADM Venlet said. “But there is a very steady and determined and incremental progress in the PBL. It’s a very small scope now. It grows in scope out to the 2017- 2018 area when the size of the fleet inventory gets much more significant.

“We do believe there’s a balance of organic support in US depots with industry activity and support, and we spoke about this at the CEO conference last week. We don’t know what the right number is. We’re going to develop it in this sustainment activity going forward. ” Another issue VADM Venlet addressed was concerns raised in a US Government Accountability Office (GAO) report which cited Defense Contract Management Agency input that investigators had “noted difficulties” with the manufacturing finish of the aircraft’s outer surface, or mould line, particularly in reference to inconsistencies, which may mean an “inability to meet the outer mould line requirements could have major impacts on cost as well as stealth requirements and capabilities. ” “The report basically… acknowledges the changes we’re making and now it’s up to us to perform on those changes and hopefully future GAO reports will have something different to say,” explained VADM Venlet.

“That is on the front scope of anybody making a jet that you want to have a good [low observable] signature on. We have delivered aircraft off of production line.

We have flown them over (test) ranges and we have very, very good results. We’re very pleased with the results. ” The flight test program has really ramped up since the TBR was completed and the development schedule re-baselined. By April 20, the combined test fleet of four F-35As, five F-35Bs and one F-35C had flown 727 test flights and 1092 flight hours. The breakdown between models shows 295 flights and 520 hours for the A models at Edwards AFB, and at Patuxent River, 379 flights and 490 hours for the F-35Bs and 53 flights and 81 hours for the sole F-35C that was in the program at the time. Since VADM Venlet’s briefing, the second F‑35C – CF-02 – has flown (on May 2 – see opposite), and isPatuxent River at the time of writing.

“As far as the [flight] envelope, the kind of investment that’s going on, they’re flying loads and flutter at both bases across all models,” he explained. “We’re opening up the envelope and we are very far along in the vertical landing test points. Actually, if you look at the [planned test flights] curve for each model for the 2011 year, each one is either on or above the line.

“One thing that we’re very pleased with is the productivity of test points per flight is above what we had planned this year. So when I talk about progress towards a milestone, a readiness for training or the sea trials for the [F-35]B, our progress of test content is ahead of schedule maybe more than the test flight count is. That’s because each flight is more productive than we had planned. So we’re very pleased with that.

“Frankly, the tech level baseline review was all about planning the future. The technical baseline review is not really what is making the jets fly good right now. My view of that is that the basic soundness of the design is starting to reveal itself and giving us that confidence. ” And finally, on the production ramp up, VADM Venlet admitted that there had been problems in delivering aircraft prior to the TBR being implemented, with as much as a day of schedule being lost every two days. “Let me just say this that delivering the test aircraft has taken longer and been more complex than everybody thought,” he said. “So we’ve got a lot of waste and rework and extra effort… we haven’t got it all pushed out of the pack at Fort Worth yet.

We [and] Lockheed adjusted the manufacturing plan last September, and so the lingo we’re using right now is called Shop Operating Plan 5, SOP5. That schedule tracks manufacturing man days and it has not deviated more than a couple of days now for over six months. Every previous manufacturing plant was losing a day for every two days of calendar time. ” He added that, apart from some part shortages for the F-35Cs and some engine issues which required some engine changes to be made, he was “pleased with that early manufacturing plan holding to schedule. ”