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Joint Strike Fighter Slips to 2012
Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program leaders from Lockheed Martin and the U.S. government will be anxious at the show to get the message across to current and potential partners and customers that the last four months of bad news about the project was not a harbinger of worse to come.
Late in June, the Pentagon approved a new schedule for the project that slips the initial operational capability date from 2010 to early 2012. The first JSF, a USAF F-35A, will fly less than a year late, in the summer of 2006, and the first short take-off, vertical landing (STOVL) F-35B will follow a year later. However, these aircraft will not incorporate internal changes that are critical if the operational STOVL fighter is to perform a useful mission.
The underlying problem is weight. As the April 2004 deadline for the JSF air vehicle critical design review (CDR) drew nearer, it became apparent that efforts in 2003 to cut the fighter's weight had failed. The F-35B was reported as being between 2,400 pounds and 3,300 pounds overweight, jeopardizing its ability to meet one of the non-negotiable key performance parameter (KPP) standards in the contract: a vertical landing carrying two 1,000-pound bombs and two AIM-120 missiles.
The CDR has been delayed until next year and a STOVL weight attack team (SWAT) has been formed to deal with the weight problem. Reluctant to squeeze more power out of the hard-working engine and lift fan, JSF developers are trying to remove some of the weight gain through redesign, while looking at changes in procedures, such as smaller fuel reserves on landing, that would allow a less-overweight F-35B to meet the KPP. The design changes would be incorporated in the third flying JSF, the Navy F-35C, which would fly in the late summer of 2008, at least 18 months behind the original schedule.
To minimize the IOC slip, the start of low-rate initial production (LRIP) is delayed by only one year - to some degree increasing concurrency and risk. The Marines, with the most urgent requirement, should see IOC in early 2012; the Navy and USAF follow a year later. The UK's IOC is "to be determined" but no earlier than the USAF and Navy.
Partners have also expressed discontent over U.S. restrictions
on technology transfer, and contracts that give the U.S. a dominant
position in JSF upgrades. Just-retired BAE Systems chairman Dick
Evans called JSF "a massive disappointment for us," earlier this
year. "There will probably be two or three major updates throughout
the program, and we know that one of those updates will be undertaken
by Lockheed -- and not in the UK," he said. An unidentified "senior
source" put it less diplomatically to The Guardian newspaper
in late June: "We got legged over."
Another issue: concern among export customers that they may get
a less stealthy, less survivable JSF than the U.S. services and
preferred allies like the UK. In November, the Pentagon quietly
awarded Lockheed Martin a €488 million ($603 million) add-on
contract to develop an "international partner version" for the JSF,
described as "a version of the JSF -- that is as common as possible
to the U.S. air system within the National Disclosure Policy."
Program sources say that there has been long-standing tension between theater commanders - who want to be able to use allies' JSFs just like U.S. aircraft - and the stealth community, which is more concerned about protecting its secrets. JSF program leaders, however, have never said that all JSFs will be equal in terms of stealth.
- Bill Sweetman
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