Nunn Mc Who?
It is hard enough trying to follow UK defence acquisition issues without having to understand another but an interesting snippet from the USA might have significant consequences for the UK’s Joint Combat Aircraft (JSF/F35)
As part of the Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1982, Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Representative David McCurdy (D-OK) included an amendment intended to limit cost growth in major weapons programs which was taken into law in 1983.
It states that should a programme’s costs grow by more than 15% Congress has to be formally notified and a detailed explanation forthcoming. If costs have risen by 25% or more then cancellation should be the outcome unless the Secretary of Defense submits a detailed explanation certifying that the program is essential to the national security, that no suitable alternative of lesser cost is available, that new estimates of total program costs are reasonable, and that the management structure is (or has been made) adequate to control costs.
So what does this mean for the UK?
Ordinarily nothing but in the last few days Air Force General Norton Schwartz has confirmed what everyone and their aunty has been predicting, that the F35 Joint Strike Fighter programme is likely to punch through the reporting boundary for a Nunn McCurdy breach. This comes on top of mounting bad news including the replacement of the programme manager and a likely slip (yet again) in delivery dates.
The F35B is the preferred aircraft to fulfill the RAF/RN Joint Combat Aircraft requirement although the final choice has yet to be made, the planning assumption is that the STVOL B model will be obtained.
There is no doubt that the F35 is too big to fail and certainly too big to cancel but inevitably, costs have risen and will continue to rise, delivery dates have slipped and will continue to slip.
In a nutshell, a higher unit price, lower specification and less of them.
Business as usual then
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F35 might be too big to cancel, in effect a “no fail” project for the good’ol boys in the US of A, because they have large fleets of rapidly aging teen-series fighters.
The UK on the other hand, not only could but SHOULD withdraw from the program as it will be both late and over budget AND the yanks have reneged on their agreement over access to software source code (technology transfer). We have discussed on numerous occasions here, what the alternatives could be for both the RAF (single type, Typhoon only flee) and the Fleet Air Arm (Rafale, F18, Sea Gripen, even Sea-Phoon (!) – or no fixed wing air).
CANCEL IT NOW before we waste more money.
I don’t think I would go as far as calling president Obama a moron after all he is following advice from Sec Def Gates and other advisors who are maybe not exactly the brightest bulbs in the box. I have always thought the cutting of F-22 numbers to 187 aircraft and closing the production line is/was one of the most dangerous decisions. The F-35 will not be a capable air superiority fighter you don’t need to be a genius to see that one of course people will argue ‘manoeuvring is irrelevant’ and I have no way of knowing it will be crap. However what is more likely to be correct it’s a crap fighter or it’s going to be a capable air to air machine and manoeuvring really is irrelevant going by Lockheed’s performance and marketing twaddle know where I stand. Now even disregarding the aircraft itself it most likely would have been cheaper to procure a massive fleet of F-22’s rather than pay roughly the same price per unit for the F-35. At the very least the line should have been kept ticking over at a sustainable rate to see what the rest of the world would get up to in the coming years just in case more aircraft were needed. In other words to see what the Russians with the PAK-FA and the Chinese with whatever they are working on will deploy and whether or not more F-22’s are needed.
We’re all pretty screwed because there’s a MORON who’s the President of the United States as Obama has said that the F-22 Raptor ATF is obsolete and a relic of the Cold War, the only problem is that no one have told the Russians who recently test flew the Sukhoi PAK FA T-50 prototype of their version of the F-22; but here’s the real stupid part, while Obama says the F-22 Raptor is obsolete, it is still too sophisitcated to consider selling to allies of the US like Australia, Japan and the UK… does any of this make sense? The best that the UK, Australia and Japan is to try holding on for two years; hope that Obama loses re-election and a Republican President will reverse Obama’s decision.
As far as I am concerned I believe that the F-35 well and truly breached nun McCurdy possibly years ago the schedule has been redefined and redefined so it is now years late and this of course has added billions to the cost. The F-35 fan boys still seem to be brainwashed and the people in power seem to be standing around doing nothing to kick Lockheed Martin into delivering on the contract original or not. It’s quite shocking to see the tallies of test flights that should have been carried out vs. those that have been carried out it’s staggering that Lockheed Martin thinks things are rosy. I even suspect that the Russian PAK-FA may reach its IOC before the F35 or most likely very close to each other. The problem for us in not really the schedule after all the carriers have been pushed back to basically keep people employed and move paying the bills onto the next government, shady yes but that’s bankruptcy for you. The real problem for us is the simple cost of each airframe not only in terms of purchase costs but in operating costs people who follow the program more than me predict unit costs over $100mln.
However I would not say the F-35 is too big to cancel there are still alternatives the F-22 line is not completely dead although would take a cash injection to get moving and the US navy are still buying super hornets. European partners such as the Netherlands, Norway etc could opt for one of the Euro canards or another American offering and the UK could add the programs cancellation to the reasons to dump the carriers. The only real problem I can see is the insistence from the USMC that they need a STOVL aircraft they would be the real losers as they would get nothing to replace the Harrier. A slight niggle would be the fact that there are no longer masses of 5th generation combat aircraft in western air forces however there are hardly going to be that many for a while in eastern air forces.
In my opinion I would scrub the F-35 if it were cheaper to buy super hornets or Rafales for the Royal Navy or as most would have it much cheaper as we would have no fast air in the FAA. Any idea if we would get money back like we supposedly would if we withdrew from the A400M project? If yes I would be dumping it tomorrow for an F/A-18E/F/G vs. Rafale competition.