Too Much Too Soon?

‘Concurrency’ – where aircraft are in production even as flight and fatigue testing continues such that design fixes will have to be retrofitted to early build jets – has become the key issue for the F-35 program, especially as more design issues are being found with the jet than expected.

As the QLR’s executive summary notes, the F-35 wasn’t meant to be like other legacy fighters, as sophisticated computer modelling was meant to avoid many of the design issues that invariably crop up during flight and fatigue testing.

But it turns out the F-35 is not so different with its rate of “discovery” after all. The computer modelling is much more sophisticated, but so too is the F-35 itself, designed, as Lockheed Martin likes to point out, for an 8000 hour fatigue life and featuring complex composite ‘unitised’ major components in its construction, not to mention its stealth design and highly sophisticated sensor suite.

As detailed in our update on the F-35 program from p20, the QLR also highlights areas of technical risk in the program, and that much flight and fatigue testing has yet to be completed, which could lead to further “discoveries” requiring rectification.

None of these are expected to be show stoppers, with overall technical risk manageable.

But the concurrency debate is in effect one about cost and production rates. Head of the JSF Joint Program Office Vice Admiral David Venlet advocated in a recent interview that F-35 production be slowed until the aircraft is more mature to minimise the cost of upgrading already built aircraft with fixes found during testing.

And if production is slowed, or at least not ramped up as quickly as currently planned, that will affect the per unit cost of the aircraft, right around the time Australia is looking to acquire the jet.

So the issue for Australia, looking to take delivery of its first two of an initial buy of 14 F-35As in 2014, is two fold.

Its early aircraft may be subject to expensive ‘concurrency’ retrofits (Venlet estimated that to be currently in the order of US$3‑5 million each), and if the production rate is slowed, the per unit cost is likely to be significantly higher than currently expected. (And that is ignoring any impact to buy numbers and production build up rates from the US budget crisis, not to mention any other cuts other partner nations make to their buy numbers).

No wonder Defence Minister Stephen Smith has commissioned his own review into F-35 schedule risk, before committing Australia to its second tranche of 58 F-35s.

The issue for Australia is that the F-35 becomes like the Tiger ARH and MRH 90 helicopters – the more these programs are delayed the closer Australia becomes to being a lead customer more greatly exposed to development and schedule risk, compared to buying an aircraft or helicopter in a mature production state.

And this is where the capability gap issue arises. The RAAF’s ‘classic’ Hornets are tiring and need replacing late this decade, so Australia can’t simply defer its F-35 procurement until the program is more mature.

Enter the Super Hornet, which Minister Smith has identified as the “obvious option” to negate any RAAF fighter capability gap. Acquiring more presents as a low risk cost effective solution to any fighter gap.

But any decision to do so would need to be made in 2012, before Boeing begins to wind down production as US Navy orders are filled (unless the USN buys more to cover F-35 delays). And that would likely mean that the RAAF would indefinitely operate a mixed F/A-18F/F-35 fighter fleet, rather than the all F-35 fighter force it has so long argued for.

It is that age old trade-off between technical risk and capability.

Thanks Alex

A quick note of thanks to Alex Howe, who is leaving Australian Aviation after three years to study aviation management at university. Thanks for all your hard work here Alex, and good luck with life’s next chapter!