Ramping Up

That “most significant milestone” was the US Marine Corps’ declaration of initial operating capability – IOC – for the F-35B Lightning II. After almost two decades in development, the Joint Strike Fighter, the world’s largest and most expensive military development and acquisition program, is ready to go to war.

“The Marines went through a very vigorous process to understand whether they were ready, not just theaircraft but all the support around it, logistic system, were they trained, were their pilots ready, could they deploy weapons, they did all of that prior to being able to make a recommendation to the commandant that they felt they were ready. So it was a good test of the overall program,” Martin tells Australian Aviation just weeks after the F-35B IOC milestone.

Tasked with running this most complex of programs, Martin was in Canberra for discussions with Australian Defence and RAAF officials before making a quick visit to Melbourne to see F-35 supplier Marand (profiled elsewhere this issue).

“I set three priorities for my team at the beginning of the year, and the first one was, Marine Corps IOC to be achieved. The Marine Corps had said that theywanted that to happen anywhere from like July to November timeframe. We picked July, myself and the PEO [program executive officer], General Bogdan, and said, ‘let’s have our teams aim at that first date, if we don’t make 1 July, you know, we at least gave the Marines as much room as we could. In the end, we had everything ready for them at the beginning of July, and the Marines used July just to assess themselves, assess the operation, and then on the 31st they were able to declare,” Martin explains.

“So, did it put some pressure on us? I think it was good pressure. It was pressure that enabled us to make sure everything was complete and ready. That was non-trivial, it was about a two-year run up to that. One of the largest things that we needed to do for them was get their aircraft, and they said they wanted ten in the configuration that would be representative of what they wanted to go to war with. So we had to bring them through our modification program and make sure they were upgraded with the things that we have discovered since we built those aircraft, and we did get that done. ” Marine Corps IOC is certainly a huge milestone for the program – a first squadron of 10 F-35Bs is now capable of being deployed on operations. It is a sign that significant progress is being made with the F-35, but also that significant milestones lie ahead, from the completion of flight test and development of the F-35’s definitive software load (called Block 3F), to ramping up production from the current rate of 30 a year to over 150 a year by the end of the decade. Not to mention achieving initial and then full operating capability with the US Air Force and Navy plus eight international customers and three FMS customers, plus standing up more than a dozen F-35 air bases.

So what were the lessons learned from the Marine Corps IOC process that can be applied to the US Air Force, Navy and international customer IOCs? One key, explains Martin, was a directive from the US Marine Corps Commandant that was explicit in spelling out his service’s requirements for IOC.

“We were able to use that letter to build checklists and build scorecards, that we kept current between ourselves, the JPO [Joint Program Office] and the US Marine Corps, and monitor those every month, sometimes every week, to understand that we weremaking the progress to get to completion,” Martin says.

“The US Air Force has issued a similar letter, as has the Navy, and our other international partners are looking to do the same. It’s very very helpful, because it’s not just the airplane, it’s all of the other things, especially if you’re ship-based, you’ve got to have ship modifications, you’ve got to have logistics capability set up to go and deploy, so that was one lesson learned that was extremely helpful, and we will duplicate that for all of the other customers. ” Martin reiterates that IOC is not just focused on the aircraft itself.

“It’s not just the airplane, that’s the other lesson learned, you’ve got to make sure you have everyone trained, the maintenance folks feeling comfortable they can turn the aircraft, that they’ve had enough time with the logistics system, that they can do what they need to do.

Because we have a global supply system, we needed to make sure that all of that was ready for them as well. ” So how scalable are the processes in place for IOC for 10 aircraft compared to the total program of introducing over 3,000 US and international customer aircraft into service? “Do I think it’s scalable? You know, it’s scalable and it’s going to be built to be unique and implemented for each of the countries. Not any one country is getting 3,000 plus aircraft, it’s that total fleet [where] we can get the economies of scale by having commonality across all of those users of the aircraft. ” At the same time, says Martin, requirements are “very specific, in Australia [for example, with] 72 aircraft, making sure that that’s going to be up and operating effectively and efficiently. So it’s both big and it’s small at the same time. You asked before what some of the challenges are on a program like this, that’s certainly one of them, how to be everything to everyone and then giving the customer exactly what they need all simultaneously. ” Now with USMC IOC achieved, perhaps the next most pressing customer requirement is US Air Force IOC, planned for a six-month window from August 2016.

“We will aim at the beginning of August, there’s things that we will have to work hard at to make sure we get there, but it’s our commitment to do so,” says Martin of USAF IOC.

One issue the F-35 program has wrestled with that will be less problematic for USAF IOC is ‘concurrency’ –

Did it put some pressure on us? I think it was good pressure.

where modifications found to fix issues discovered during flight test are retrofitted to aircraft already built or on the production line.

“The modifications that we need for the US Air Force aircraft are not as extensive because they are newer, more recent aircraft,” says Martin.

The USAF will declare IOC with 12 F-35As fitted with an interim Block 3i software load, as the definitive Block 3F build, which will be fitted to Australia’s F-35s and clears the aircraft to carry a wider range of weapons, won’t be released until the third quarter of 2017.

“We have completed all of the software development for 3F, so now it’s in integration and flight tests. We’ve had several versions into flight test, we have six aircraft configured in the 3F configuration, and we’re learning, we’re fixing, we’re learning, we’re fixing. That’s what flight test is for. ” Block 3F’s release will be one of the last major milestones as the F-35’s System Design and Development – SDD – program winds up in the fourth quarter of 2017.

“A lot of flight test in 3F is weapons drops, we have a lot of new weapons in the 3F configuration. But . . . we see no reason why SDD won’t end on the schedule that’s in front of you there [the fourth quarter of 2017]. ”But finalising Block 3F and the SDD process are not Martin’s biggest concerns.

“What keeps me awake at night is not really the SDD program at this point. We will find something, we’re going to discover things, that’s what testing is about. ” Instead, explains Martin: “The challenge we have right now is making sure that we can stand up the sustainment capabilities around the world and have them be both globally efficient and uniquely tailored for each customer, in the way it needs to fit into their way of operating aircraft.

“The value proposition is, we’re all getting the same aircraft and we can get a lot of cost reduction by being able to efficiently support and sustain the aircraft. ” Conversely, there’s a tension where pooling sustainment arrangements will give economies of scale, but then each customer nation will want its own distinct support arrangements.

“So it’s finding that right magic, and it will take some time and probably years to really flesh that out.

Everyone has the intent of wanting that efficiency, we just have to figure out how that operates with each country’s way of operating the aircraft. ” In Australia the RAAF’s planned fleet of 72 F-35As will be supported by BAE Systems (responsible for airframe maintenance) and TAE (for the jet’s Pratt & Whitney F135 engine).

“When the regional depots and maintenance andoverhaul capabilities were put in place each nation expressed to the US government whether they were interested in having that regional capability in their nation, because they’re going to have to put some infrastructure in place, they also selected an industry partner, and Australia picked BAE as part of the offering that they made to the overall JSF program.

Now, we will contract with BAE to help put that in place,” Martin explains.

In the meantime growing experience in operating the F-35 – to date more than 150 have flown – is helping define and refine maintenance requirements.

“We have about 37,000 hours on the aircraft across all three variants. Maturity is considered to be at 200,000 hours, so we’re still going to learn a lot more about how to maintain the aircraft. Right now the aircraft are meeting the reliability growth curve – so we have a curve that says, at a certain point in time, we’re going to expect the reliability of the aircraft to be at a certain place and we’re on that curve – which is great,” Martin says.

“But,” she continues, “there are some components that are less reliable than we thought, and some components that are much more reliable than we

It’s both big and it’s small at the same time.

thought. So it’s really just getting that all understood and then fixing the ones that we can with perhaps new designs for the reliability issues and then making sure that we get those spares into the inventory.

“We are learning a lot about the aircraft. A lot of the challenges we are having right now have to do with things like adhesives and the cure time for them, if you open up a panel, especially with the LO (low observability) capability, you’ve got to cure it back.

Some of these adhesives are taking 48 hours to cure, wouldn’t it be great if it took four hours to cure? We’ve been able to find new technologies and new adhesives to replace those and drastically help maintenance of the aircraft. ” Says Martin, “Those are the kinds of things we are learning and you don’t learn those until you have hours on the aircraft and you’ve really put the maintenance team through their paces and figure out what we need to do to help them. ” Ensuring the F-35 is cost-effective to support, Martin says, is a key goal of the program.

“An aircraft that is inexpensive to operate is one that is going to stay in the inventory and is goingto be purchased by other countries, so it’s a very big motivation for us. You want any of your products to be considered low life-cycle cost, and in an aircraft it’s very very important because most of the cost of the overall aircraft is in its life-cycle, not in its initial purchase. ” Nonetheless that initial purchase price is often the key point of focus because it is the easiest concept to grasp – how much does an aircraft cost rather than what is the program’s life-cycle cost. On that front Lockheed Martin reports that the unit cost of an F-35A has been reduced by 57 per cent over the first eight low rate initial production (LRIP) batches, and that it will be less than US$80 million per jet by 2019.

Another effort to keep cost down, particularly as the US dollar has strengthened against a range of F-35 partner countries’ currencies, like Australia’s, over the last few years, is revisiting the concept of a ‘block buy’.

“Secretary Kendall, who is the acquisition head for the US government, publicly announced back in May that he was interested in taking three years, (LRIP batches) 12, 13 and 14, which if you put them all together is about 500 aircraft, and negotiating that with ourselves and our supply chain at one time, and then giving a guarantee of that quantity over that period of time,” Martin explains.

“What that does for us is predictability, it gives us the ability to go out to the supply chain and get greater economies of scale for raw material, titanium, aluminium, those kinds of things, and could help, if we’re able to do this, offset some of those other financial challenges like exchange rate pressures that are going on for some other countries. ” Pulling together a block buy would be complex but would bring considerable benefits, Martin explains.

“Ideally we could get some significant savings, when you’re talking about 500 aircraft you don’t have to get too much in percentage [improvements] to get up into the billions of savings. So it’s something that we’re very excited about, we’re going to work with the US government to see if we can make that a reality, and for our supply chain it’s gold. When you know you’re going to build, you know, this many aircraft in this period of time, you can really hunker down and findsome ways to bring the cost down. ” But getting a number of governments to commit to a block buy will be a challenge – half the jets due to be built in LRIPs 12, 13 and 14 (covering 2018-2020) are for international partners and FMS customers.

“The governments have to say they’re going to buy the aircraft, and you’ve mentioned before how many we have, and they’ve all got to come together. So that’s really I think the process we will go through now. We’ve given an estimate of what we think the savings can be, . . . the US government has that, they now need to go to both the congressional staff and then each of the countries to see if it is attractive, so we’re hopeful. ” But overall, Martin characterises the F-35, despite its critics, as “easy to sell”.

“I don’t think there’s any defence program today that you don’t have to keep it sold. There are pressures in every one of these countries in their budgets, whether they have other weapon systems they need to build or they’ve got forces deployed around the world that they’ve got to sustain and provide the right provisioning for. So your program better be performing well, it had better be on budget, and even when it is, you’ve got to keep it sold,” Martin says.

“Thankfully the F-35 is pretty easy to sell right now, it’s got technology that we have to have to go against the threat, and the governments that have seen the classified information know that they can’t go with their current weapon systems where they need to go, and with this aircraft they can. So from that perspective, as soon as you know what the aircraft does, you know, it keeps itself sold, but I’ve got to keep the cost down, and I’ve got to make sure it’s sustainable over its life-cycle. ” And the F-35’s Australian customer? “They’re pretty content right now.

We’ve got to watch all the pieces and make sure we have the plan in place for Australia, because every country needs what they need, and there’s still work to be done between now and 2018 [when the first RAAF F-35s arrive in Australia], but we’re starting to kick a lot of things off at Williamtown, and that’s going to be a hotbed here for a while, with all the infrastructure investment, and then just getting all the industry that needs to be up there ready for aircraft arrival. ”

Your program better be performing well, it had better be on budget, and even when it is, you’ve got to keep it sold.