The F-35 may be
unsalvageable
The 2021 reviews
of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) are in, and they are not glowing.
On Jan. 14, 2021,
then-acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller labeled the JSF a “piece
of [expletive].” Then, on March 5, 2021, House Armed Services Committee
Chairman Adam Smith (D-Wash.) called the program a “rathole,” and asked
whether it was time to stop spending that much money for “such a low
capability?”
The JSF has become
the embodiment of the Defense Department’s (DOD) broken weapons acquisition
system, which has been on the Government Accountability Office’s High-Risk
List since 1990. The F-35 was originally conceived as the low-end of a
high-low strategy consisting of numerous cheap aircraft that would replace
Cold War workhorses like the F-16 and A-10, among other aircraft. The plan
was for the JSF to be complimented by a smaller fleet of more advanced
fighters, to be developed later.
The program has
been under continuous development since the contract was awarded in 2001
and has faced innumerable delays and cost overruns. Total acquisition costs
now exceed $428 billion, nearly double the initial estimate of $233
billion, with projected lifetime operations and maintenance costs of $1.727
trillion.
On April 26, 2016,
then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) called
the JSF program “both a scandal and a tragedy with respect to cost,
schedule and performance.” In February 2014, Frank Kendall, then-under
secretary of Defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, referred to
the purchase of the F-35 as “acquisition malpractice,” a description that
has yet to be improved upon.
The JSF has been
plagued by a staggering array of persistent issues, many of which were
highlighted in the fiscal 2019 DOD Operational Test and Evaluation Annual
Report, which revealed 873 unresolved deficiencies including 13 Category 1
items, involving the most serious flaws that could endanger crew and
aircraft. While this is an overall reduction from the 917 unresolved
deficiencies and 15 Category 1 items found in September 2018, the report
stated that “although the program is working to fix deficiencies, new
discoveries are still being made, resulting in only a minor decrease in the
overall number of deficiencies.”
Many of the
problems with the program can be traced to the decision to develop and
procure the aircraft simultaneously. Whenever problems have been
identified, contractors needed to go back and make changes to planes that
were already assembled, adding to overall costs.
Despite the abject
failure of the JSF, the DOD is revisiting the high-low approach. According
to Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Charles Brown, the F-35, intended to serve
as a low-end utilitarian aircraft, is now a high-end sports car: “You don’t
drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays.” On
March 10, 2021, the Air Force accepted delivery of the first of 144
upgraded F-15EXs. Brown is targeting the fiscal 2023 budget request to fund
an F-16 replacement. The old low end has become the new high end, and those
F-16s and A-10s still need to be replaced.
Although it has an
extraordinarily poor track record, killing off the JSF entirely will prove
difficult. According to a map showing the economic impact across the
country on Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II website, the only states
that do not have at least one supplier for the aircraft are Hawaii and
North Dakota. This gives all but two representatives and four senators more
than enough incentive to not only keep greasing the wheels, but also to add
32 earmarks for the JSF program, costing $10.6 billion, since fiscal 2001.
There has also been significant investment in the program by NATO members
and other allies. The best taxpayers can likely hope for, barring an
uncharacteristic recalibration with reality from the Pentagon, is that the
program gets significantly scaled back.
The DOD is at an
inflection point. The design by committee, Swiss Army knife approach has
been a resounding failure. Moving forward, the Pentagon must avoid
purchasing aircraft prior to completion of the design and development
phases and reduce the red tape that has slowed down the process. In the
interim, the time has come reduce the cost and scope of the F-35 program.
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