Carter: DoD May Buy More F-35s To Speed Tests
By JOHN T. BENNETT
Published: 23 Nov 2009 15:48
U.S. defense officials might swell the F-35 fighter test fleet to avoid schedule slips forecast by DoD analysts, Pentagon acquisition chief Ashton Carter said.
Ashton Carter, Pentagon chief acquisition officer, said Defense officials are considering additional F-35s as part of a months-long effort to fashion a management plan for the Lightning II fighter program. (ROB CURTIS / STAFF)
Buying additional F-35s for testing is one option Pentagon brass are mulling as part of a months-long effort to fashion a management plan for the Lightning II fighter program, Carter told a group of reporters today at the Pentagon.
Whatever the revised plan looks like, Carter said, he expects prime contractor Lockheed Martin to help DoD pay any additional costs that might be spawned.
Pentagon officials "don't want to be in a situation where the government bears the cost of schedule slips in a program all by itself," Carter said. "It's reasonable that risk in a program ... be shared equitably."
A Pentagon joint estimate team's annual review of the tri-service, international fighter program forecast cost growth and delays. Carter has been meeting with Pentagon and industry officials involved in the program, as well as those reviewing its performance and likely cost and schedule paths, for several weeks. He chaired a weekend meeting Nov. 21-22.
Buying more planes for flight tests means "one can conduct the necessary string of tests in a more compressed time," Carter said.
Under current program plans, "we have a certain number of aircraft that we have allocated to the flight test program, and then there is a certain amount of testing that needs to get done," the acquisition, technology and logistics chief said. "So, it's how much testing can each aircraft do times the number of aircraft, and that determines the duration of the flight test program."
Carter said he has made "no final decisions yet" about how Pentagon officials will tinker with the program to avoid the estimating team's downbeat forecasts. He anticipates the new F-35 strategy will be in put in place over the next few weeks as Pentagon officials finalize the 2011 defense budget plan.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the Joint Strike Fighter the centerpiece of the future U.S. tactical fighter fleet about seven months ago when he halted F-22 production and ordered more F-35s.
In consecutive annual program assessments, the Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office estimate team has found the program needs billions more in funding and could face up to two years in additional delays. One estimate said $16 billion more is needed to avoid major trouble and predicted two years of possible delays.
Pentagon officials have declined to discuss those figures, but they have said any F-35 cost increases would not be enough to trigger federal provisions requiring Pentagon officials to end or significantly revamp programs that exceed specific cost caps.
The CAPE team's cost and schedule forecasts - based in part on historical examples of how DoD fared on similar efforts - differ vastly from that foreseen by F-35 military and industry program managers. Carter called the CAPE estimates "very credible," even noting its 2008 program assessment predicted things for 2009 that would later transpire.
Carter said he is "trying to dig down and understand" the list of factors that contribute to the different views of the effort's future performance. Ultimately, he said, he would like to "end up somewhere in between" the two projections.
While the new strategy is not yet complete, the one thing this Pentagon leadership team will not do, Carter said, is "just lay in more money." Officials instead are "trying to get the best management" plan, he said.
Simply throwing money at the program without implementing new "management tools," he said, "is not responsible management."
Carter said he is emphasizing the need to build into the Pentagon's 2011 budget plan "realistic" F-35 cost and schedule projections for the next few years.
During the weekend meeting, which he called "constructive," Carter said he discussed with top Lockheed executives the need for a "realistic plan" and that he wants to see them show "a commitment to that plan." He also told them "that we need to address affordability," noting that "is the No. 1 thing Secretary Gates has stressed about JSF."
He said he also told Lockheed officials to show how recent productivity enhancements in the Fort Worth, Texas, plant where the F-35 is built could be reflected in the fighter jet's price.
Carter said that despite a recent spate of troubling developments, he sees "a lot of good things going on with the [F-35] program."
The bottom line, he said, is "we need to know where we're headed, and we need to be disciplined."
Meantime, Carter said, Air Force and DoD officials continue fielding and assessing questions, comments and concerns from the industry teams - Boeing and a Northrop Grumman-EADS partnership - expected to compete for a $35 billion aerial tanker contract.
A draft request for proposals was released for that competition in September, and the department had set a late-November goal for getting out a final request for proposals (RfP).
Carter said he cannot predict whether the final solicitation will be out by month's end or whether it will slip into December. He said Air Force and Pentagon officials are moving very carefully to address the questions and comments from the likely competitors.
He said they will release the RfP "as soon as we can."
Additionally, the weapons-buying chief touched on the size of future U.S. defense budgets, saying "we are entering a period of no double-digit [annual] growth." That places even greater importance on "managing programs," Carter said. "We just can't watch or oversee them."
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